August 2019

This article was sent by email to Simon Whittley-Ryan of Avianta Capital Consulting Ltd because it references that company and four other companies he controls. Those companies are Highgrove Osprey PLC, St Helier Capital Management Ltd, Win River Ltd and Win River Developments Ltd. We gave him the opportunity to correct any errors in this article and to provide evidence in support of his corrections. Mr Whittley-Ryan wrote a long and aggressive email in response. Unfortunately he did not specifically address the points below nor provide any evidence to suggest that our comments are inaccurate. We have published extracts from Mr Whittley-Ryan’s response on a separate blog. The link is at the bottom of the page. 

Our Article 

“Two ex-directors at the now defunct airline WOW Air are working on founding a new low-fare airline from the ruins. The new airline is to be called WAB Air with ‘WAB’ standing for ‘We Are Back’. The twosome is working on raising the airline from the ground with investors”. These are extracts from several global newspaper reports on the newly resurrected Icelandic Airline.

That sounds very promising, but when we read the rest of it we became concerned this venture might go into a very sudden nose-dive !

The first 25% shareholding has been taken by parties involved in the original airline. The remaining 75% will be owned by Irish company Avianta Capital Ltd.

Avianta Capital Ltd is owned by Aislinn Whittley-Ryan, daughter of one of the founders of Ryanair.  Mrs Whittley-Ryan runs an equestrian business called Brockingbury Stud Limited so it is surprising that she is now changing tack (no pun intended) and entering into the field of venture finance. Here is a LINK to the register at Companies House.

It may be explained by the fact that she recently married a Mr Simon Whittley, who now describes himself as Simon Whittley-Ryan.  Mr Whittley-Ryan is well known to us as he is the founder and controller of four UK companies which have defaulted on interest payments and repayments of investment capital to investors amounting to millions of pounds.  There is nothing to suggest that Mrs Whittley-Ryan has been involved in her husband’s business dealings.  The registered office of Brockingbury Stud Limited is a residential property which has been used by Simon Whittley-Ryan as the registered office for some of his businesses.

Here is a LINK to a newspaper article on Mr Simon Whittley-Ryan’s company called Highgrove Osprey PLC.

A Winding Up Order was issued over this company on 13^th August 2019. See this LINK

Another of his companies, St Helier Capital Management Ltd, is also the subject of a winding up petition filed by one of our clients.  See this LINK.  One of the supporting creditors is 90 years old. His contract completed its term and Simon Whittley-Ryan still refused to repay him his overdue interest and his capital investment.

Another Safe Or Scam client has signed the necessary court papers to wind up the third Simon Whittley-Ryan company, Win River Developments Ltd, and these will be filed with the court in the coming days.

And finally, to complete the set, his fourth company Win River Ltd has also defaulted on interest and capital repayments to investors. We have been advised that an investor in Win River Ltd intends to file a winding up petition in the coming weeks if he is not paid his debt.

It seems that everything Simon Whittley-Ryan is involved in ends up in payment defaults and potentially significant losses for investors.

Mr Whittley-Ryan has been promising investors there will be an imminent “refinancing” of his companies which will allow them to meet their debt obligations, but he has been promising that for a very long time. Clearly the petitioners owed money by Highgrove Osprey PLC lost patience with his promises.

What makes us think that Simon Whittley-Ryan has anything to do with WAB Air and his wife’s company Avianta Capital Ltd ? Well, he is the sole director of a UK company called Avianta Capital Consulting Ltd and we don’t think that is a coincidence.  We presume the aim of this UK company is to provide “consulting services” to Avianta Capital Limited.  We wonder what those consulting services might consist of bearing in mind the business acumen and ethics of its founder.

The Times newspaper based in London has reported that Simon Whittley-Ryan is certainly involved in his wife’s company.  Read what they have to say on this LINK.

It will be interesting to see whether it is Aislinn Whittley-Ryan or Simon Whittley-Ryan who is the driving force behind the financing of this new airline venture. Considering the history of Mr Whittley-Ryan we are of the opinion that any potential investor should exercise extreme caution.  They would be wise to insist on very stringent controls over how the money is to be used.

If Simon Whittley-Ryan is involved perhaps “We Are Back” Air might be better described as “Watch Your Back” Air.

Extracts from Mr Whittley-Ryan’s response can be viewed HERE

Safe Or Scam has started an investigation into Strategy Markets.

Strategy Markets operated a bogus equity and commodity trading platform whereby investors agreed to allow “traders” to buy and sell shares and commodities using the investor’s money.

Strategy Markets promised average monthly returns of 1.1%.  It was a very well-constructed scam offering different packages to investors with titles such as SWP Portfolio or PPP Passive Preservation Portfolio, but of course none of these packages really existed.  The investor’s money was stolen the moment they paid it over.

The investor’s trading history could be viewed online when they logged into their account.  The investor would be able to see a lot of impressive graphs, a history of the trades undertaken on their account, movements on equity and commodity indices in real-time etc.  It looked impressive but the trading history was entirely false.  None of the trades were ever made. Investors were watching a piece of software designed to produce a fake trading history.

Strategy Markets is a new investigation for us and is not to be confused with StratXMarkets, a binary option trading scam for which our investigation is well advanced and one where we have been achieving results.  One of the larger money mule companies involved in collecting money for StratXMarkets has been closed down and a team will now be going through the company records.  The StratXMarkets investigation is entering a new phase which we hope will lead to a recovery of funds and criminal charges being brought.

The hook for trading scams such as Strategy Markets is to offer investors the opportunity to make a small initial investment or to reassure them that “for the first month all trades are undertaken at the traders risk”.  The scam trading company will then adjust their fake software to show healthy profits over that early period.  The investor, believing the profits they see on the screen are genuine, is then persuaded to increase their investment.  That’s how this kind of scam works.  They also apply the 4:1 rule by ensuring that for every four profitable trades they show one loss-making trade.  If every trade made a profit the investor would think it was a bit suspicious so they throw in the occasional loss to make it look more realistic.  On a regular basis the investor is contacted to increase their investment because they are told that their account is doing really well.  Before long the investor has paid over far more money than they ever intended.

A clue to Strategy Markets being a scam is that none of their documentation actually contains any company details.  There is no company registration number or company address on any of their letters or invoices.

However, like most of these bogus trading schemes they use money mules to collect payments from investors.  If any investor is ever seeking to invest with any organisation and the investor is asked to pay their money to an entirely different company, or to an account in an individual’s name, that should set alarm bells ringing. WALK AWAY BECAUSE IT WILL BE A SCAM.

We are working the Strategy Markets case on behalf of a client and we are following up on some leads.  If anybody can assist us with information on Strategy Markets please make CONTACT.

Safe Or Scam has been commissioned to by a group of investors to investigate the activities of Van Gossum Consult.

Van Gossum Consult has been operating a bogus trading scheme and a range of fake services.  The people behind the company have close links to the people involved in both the St Johns Asset Management scam and the Eberhard Cramer scam.  They are using the same money mules.  For example, the money mule service provided by Crest Security Contracts Ltd, a company owned by Soren Andreasen, which accepts investor money into its bank account and then transfers it out to another account unknown to investors thereby providing a shielding service which makes it almost impossible for investors to discover the ultimate destination of their money.

I say “almost impossible” because there are actually ways that investors can force disclosure from the banks and find out where the money has gone, but it costs money, is not an easy process and takes time.

Readers of our two earlier posts titled ‘St Johns Asset Management’ and ‘Aren Pedersen’ will know that Soren Andreasen is also linked to dopey Tommy Bishop of Parkwood Financial Ltd, another money mule company which steals from members of the public.

Van Gossum Consult has already come to the attention of the Financial Conduct Authority which issued a warning on 10^th June 2019 as follows:

“Van Gossum Consult is a clone of a FCA authorised firm. 

Addresses:  110 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4AY and St Mary Axe, London EC3A 8BF and International Finance Center, 8 Finance Street, Central, Hong Kong and One Raffles Place, Tower 2, 1 Raffles Place #27-62, 048616, Singapore.

Telephone:  0208 895 6910  and  0207 183 2602

Email:  info@vangossumconsult.com  and  richardddeacon@gmail.com “

Van Gossum Consult has a slightly different model to the other scams in that it has recently been requesting that investors pay their money to the bank accounts of Singapore registered companies.  That is a dangerous ploy because Singapore is renowned for coming down hard on people who try to operate scams through their jurisdictions.

Van Gossum Consult claims to offer the following services:

a Managed Currency Trading Account; Wealth Management; Commodities Trading; Tax Planning; Insurance Planning; Retirement Planning and Investment Planning.  It claims to have 189 Expert Advisors, 437 Corporate Clients and 45 Global Partnerships.

That is quite an achievement for a company that only bought its website domain name six months ago.  It is an outright scam and investors should definitely not invest with this company.

To view our blog post on St Johns Asset Management click HERE.

To view the blog on Eberhard Cramer and dopey Tommy Bishop click HERE.

To view our next recent article on the scam please click here 

Eberhard Cramer Ltd is running a scam operation in the UK. The company has established a clone operation of an existing German company. On its website Eberhard Cramer Ltd claims to be FCA regulated. The German company is FCA regulated, but only to sell insurance products. The UK company is not regulated.

That is hardly surprising because Eberhard Cramer Ltd was incorporated in the UK on 13th May 2019 by a Mr Kevin James Atherton and has nothing to do with the German company.

The model is identical to that of St Johns Asset Management, whereby the scammers find a company which is FCA regulated and then build a website pretending to be that company. We published an article about St Johns Asset Management and give a link to that article below.

With St Johns the main people involved in that scam are Soren Andreasen, Aren Pedersen and Tommy Bishop. We believe Tommy Bishop is linked to this new Eberhard Cramer scam. Our opinion of Tommy is that he isn’t the sharpest tool in the box. In fact, he’s a bit thick. It appears to us that dopey Tommy was given the task of incorporating Eberhard Cramer Ltd but messed it up. He got the spelling wrong and two weeks earlier, on 26th April 2019, actually incorporated a company called Eberhand Cramer Ltd ! Mr Atherton had to step in and form a company with the correct spelling.

Eberhard Cramer is clearly going to be used by Tommy Bishop, Soren Andreasen and Aren Pedersen in their latest scam venture. We are interested to hear from anyone who knows their current whereabouts. We already have a lot of information on them and are working on behalf of clients to recover payments made to their companies i.e Crest Security Contracts Ltd, Parkwood Financial Ltd, Clearline Contracts Ltd.

We’re pleased we are able to publish this article before Eberhard Cramer gains too much traction. This article may help to stop these crooks from stealing a lot of money from ordinary people. We have an update on Aren Pedersen coming out later this week.

To view our previous article on these scammers please click HERE

To view the next article related to this scam please click here 

Aren Pedersen is the director of a company called Clearline Contracts Ltd. This company is a money mule for a scam involving the bogus purchase of Uber shares, claims made in relation to Chinese withholding tax and other false transactions.

Investors are sold fake shares by people who like to hide their true identities. They then use accomplices like Aren Pedersen to accept money from investors into the newly established bank accounts of their companies. The money mule passes the money on to the scammers and keeps a percentage for themselves. They know what they are doing is illegal but they think they will not get caught. They’re wrong.

Aren Pedersen’s company, Clearline Contracts Ltd, was incorporated on 22nd May 2019 and began accepting money into its account almost immediately. Other accomplices in the scam include Soren Andreasen and Tommy Bishop aka Tommy dimwit Bishop.

We are chasing down Aren Pedersen’s current address and those of Soren Andreasen and Tommy Bishop on behalf of our clients. Thanks to those people who have provided us with useful leads. Here is a picture of Aren Pedersen. His friend Soren Andreasen is also Danish.

These are not the only parties involved in the scam. We’re choosing not to publish some of the others for the timebeing.

Although initially approached by one investor our articles on the activities of these three men and their involvement in the fake St Johns Asset Management Multi-Currency Alpha Fund of Funds (what a ridiculously long title) have attracted more investors. If anyone has more information on these people please make contact.

To read our previous article on Mr Pedersen and his friends please click HERE

To read the next article on Mr Pedersen and his involvement in scams please click here.

Martin Finch was the sole director of Phenco Ltd before it was wound up by the High Court in London on 10th July 2019. He has now been replaced by the Official Receiver, a person appointed by the UK Government to investigate the company’s affairs, assess the company’s asset position and to determine whether Martin Finch and his accomplices have committed any offence. The Official Receiver will also determine the best course of action for investors to recover as much of their investment as possible.

Martin Finch is also the sole director of Osage 1 Ltd, Sooner Energy SPV-1 Ltd, Kansas MB Project Ltd and Kansas B2 Project Ltd. In May 2019 Osage 1 Ltd was accused of running a Ponzi Scheme in a separate legal action in the High Court in London. Martin Finch was aided in the mis-selling of the investment by Glenn King and David Hyman. These are people who have previous history of ripping off investors in oil scams. They have since moved on to Tristone Holdings Ltd and have been selling involvement in oil leases in the USA to yet more unsuspecting investors.

On 8th August 2019 Martin Finch wrote to Phenco investors. He could not resist telling more lies. He wrote:

“As previously mentioned, the completion of the project was capital raise dependant, and this is why the US team and I decided to recycle the revenue generated back into the project as we had not completed the raise”.

Well, that is news to all the shareholders in Phenco Ltd. For the past 15 months Martin Finch has been telling shareholders that he is holding their royalty money and is waiting to pay it to them. He has written to shareholders many times to tell them that the reason he cannot pay them is because he cannot find “a payment platform”. Now he is telling them that he has been “recycling” the money and there never was any money to pay to them. He goes on to say that the company “is now at the mercy of the governmental administration and insolvency services“. For years Martin Finch has refused to provide information on assets and contracts to investors. Now at last shareholders will be able to find out exactly what the company owns and whether or not it has any value. They will learn how much of their money was paid to Martin Finch, Glenn King and David Hyman. These oil schemes were simply ways for the perpetrators to get rich at the expense of investors. The court hearing in May for Osage 1 Ltd heard evidence that 81% of the shareholders’ money was deducted in fees and commissions. Only 19% was sent to the USA. These deductions were authorised by the company director – Martin Finch.

The team in the US have been involved with Finch, King and Hyman for a very long time. We have evidence that they knew about the high level of deductions from investors. The key people are Rick Coody, Ron Clark, Ron Herzfeld and Wanda Sanders (also known as Wanda J Sanders). Coody’s son, Travis Coody, has also entered the family business. These people have a lot of oil companies between them. We are in the process of gathering more information.

Wanda Sanders uses her company InvestorVU LLC to hold her interests. We will be looking into her involvement in greater detail in future postings.

To view our previous post on the oil companies click HERE