March 2020

A company calling itself Insolvency Case Support is operating a follow-on-fraud. A man going by the name of Robert Howarth (it will not be his real name) has been cold-calling investors claiming that Insolvency Case Support Ltd has been “appointed as the liquidators of Pan Global / Solari Holdings“.  He follows up with a letter which is so poor that his scam colleagues must be laughing at him behind his back.

Firstly, he doesn’t even know the company names of the scams he is claiming to have been appointed over. “Pan Global” is not a company name. Neither is “Solari Holdings”.

Secondly, the Pan Global scam is different to the Solari scam. Pan Global was a shipping container scam whilst Solari was a solar energy company profit share scam.

We have a group of 37 investors working with a UK solicitor to recover money from the Solari scam. Solari is an interesting case because it was made to look like the scam was all taking place in Hong Kong and Australia, but it was actually being orchestrated in the UK. Parties involved in the Solari scam included, amongst others, Dr Constantine Pagonis, now of the FCA-regulated company Ipsum Invest Ltd, and Matthew Stone and Duncan Clark, now both of Renovare Fuels Ltd, Teysha Technologies Ltd and Nextgen Nano Ltd. Those companies are using very similar business models to the Solari scam ie raising funds for cleantech / renewables / futuristic ventures.

Renovare Fuels Ltd, Teysha Technologies Ltd and Nextgen Nano Ltd all have their registered offices at the law firm of Taylor Vintners LLP. That is the firm which recently wrote to a Solari investor warning him that he was slandering their clients (Matthew Stone and Duncan Clark) because he referred to them as being “convicted fraudsters”. That is a fair point. We wrote to Taylor Vintners on the investor’s behalf apologising for the use of the word “convicted”.  Neither of them have been convicted.

We have written to Taylor Vintners in the past asking them to explain the involvement of Matthew Stone and Duncan Clark in the Solari scam. They declined to answer any of the questions we raised, but interestingly they didn’t deny that Mr Stone and Mr Clark were involved. Anyone who is contemplating investing in Renovare Fuels, Teysha Technologies or Nextgen Nano might want to ask Matthew Stone and Duncan Clark to explain their involvement in the Solari scam before they commit any money to these ventures. They might have more luck getting answers than we have had. Anyone who does get an explanation please send through to us. We’d love to know what they have to say. As we pointed out to Taylor Vintners, they must be so proud to have their law firm associated with such people.

But we digress. The aim of this article is to warn the public about Insolvency Case Support. There are other clues as to just how poor a follow-on fraud this actually is. For example, the letter states “Insolvency Case Support Ltd is the trading name of Insolvency Case Support”.  Err…. that’s supposed to be the other way round Dumbo !

It gets worse. The letter is two pages long. The footer on the first page states that the company is Insolvency Case Support Ltd with company registration 07559553. The footer on the second page doesn’t give a company name but gives the company registration number as 06593697, a different company.  This link to the Companies House website shows that the company with that number, Insolvency Advisory Ltd, was dissolved in May 2019.  Dumbo ! 

What this suggests is that this scammer was previously involved in a follow-on-fraud where he claimed his company was Insolvency Advisory Ltd. He is now pretending to be Insolvency Case Support Ltd so he changed the footer on the first page assuming that it would also automatically change the footer on the second page. It didn’t. Don’t these guys even bother to read their own 2-page letter to check for errors ? This guy is definitely bottom of the scammer class. It’s useful info for us because we like finding connections between various scams.

He goes on to bait the hook for investors by claiming they are entitled to dividends:

“You may be aware that creditors are entitled to claim for a dividend in the liquidation for debts owed by Pan Global/Solari Holdings at the date of liquidation“. That’s not true. Creditors are never entitled to dividends from a company in liquidation.

Then he wants to see if the fish is biting by seeking a response:

“As this liquidation is ongoing and the investigation is currently in litigation, confidentially on existing evidence found is essential. For this reason, no information regarding the investigation can be disclosed until a confidentiality form is signed to ensure that both parties are fully covered under the GDPR legislation“.  If anyone signs and returns the form he knows they are on the hook.

His next letter will be to tell investors that they are entitled to a dividend but first they have to pay some “liquidation fees” or “release fees” or “legal costs”.  He won’t wait very long before asking for payment because he will be worried that his scam will be exposed and people will come across articles like this warning investors.

Investors / creditors never have to pay any fees or costs associated with a liquidation. Remember that and you’ll kill off these liquidation scams very quickly.

Question – When is a regulated bond not a regulated bond ?  Answer – When it’s a Westway Holdings Fake Regulated Bond.

Westway Holdings has been issuing unregulated corporate bonds for a few years. Now that the first round of investor capital is due to be paid Westway has started defaulting on interest and capital repayments to investors.  It is now telling everybody not to worry because it has issued a regulated bond and the sale of that regulated bond is raising enough money to pay off investors. The actual quote from a Westway Holdings email to investors is “Finally, we would like to mention that the listed bond we referred to in our last email is now live on the Frankfurt Exchange with ISIN number XS2123281201. We will write to you further about that bond under separate cover”.

We searched for a bond with that number but could not find it listed anywhere.  You can read our previous article on the Westway Holdings Fake Bond here.

Our investigations into the elusive bond XS2123281201 led us to the company which had been approached to sponsor the bond on the Frankfurt Exchange.  They told us they had been approached to establish this bond, but it had not proceeded.  They confirmed there is no bond with that number.  It does not exist.  That’s why we have termed it the Westway Holdings Fake Bond.

Subsequent to our enquiry we have been informed that the company contacted Anthony Marks and made it clear to him that the bond does not exist and Westway should cease claiming that it does.  They also informed him that even if the bond had been formed it was never to be sold to members of the public.  The company has now ended its relationship with Westway Holdings.

It’s intriguing that Anthony Marks was the man supposedly dealing with the fake bond.  He was a founding director of Westway Holdings Ltd but he resigned in August 2019.  We wonder why the current director, Joseph Griffin, wasn’t dealing with it.  To all intents and purposes it looks like Joseph Griffin is just a willing front man.

So this beggars the question how investors could ever be paid from the WestWay Holdings Fake Bond XS2123281201 if it has never existed.  We discovered that the fake bond was never going to be issued in the name of Westway Holdings Ltd.  Records show that it was going to be in the name of Envision Development Group Ltd.  Envision Development Group Ltd is a UK company which was formed on 7^th February 2020.

Here is a link to the information filed at Companies House.  We note that it has two directors, a Romanian citizen and an Estonian company.

What connection could a newly-formed company containing these two directors have to Westway Holdings Ltd ?  Well, we have no idea about the Romanian chap, but the Estonian company director of Envision Development Group Ltd is called “Westay International OU”.  No, we haven’t spelt that incorrectly.  That’s the name of the company registered at Companies House.  A search for ‘Westay International OU’ reveals that no such company exists.  However, there is a company called “Westway International OU” registered in Estonia.  It is that company which owns all the shares.

So, either there was a deliberate attempt to install a non-existent company as a director, or the person who incorporated Envision Development Group Ltd was so slap-dash and incompetent that he/she couldn’t get the name right.  A check on the shareholders of the company shows that Westway International OU owns all the shares. Therefore it’s fair to assume that this is also the company director.  Our searches reveal that the Estonian company is owned by Anthony Marks.  Mr Marks was the longest serving director of Westway Holdings Ltd having been appointed in March 2016 and resigning in August 2019.  It’s interesting that Mr Marks has owned this Estonian company for a couple of years.  We wonder what it does and whether it has received any money from Westway Holdings Ltd or from investors.

Recent emails from Westway Holdings have been sent out anonymously.  We raised this point in our previous article and I’m pleased to say that the latest email (below) now has the name of Joseph Griffin written at the bottom.  We reached out to Mr Griffin on 8^th March 2020 after the promised payment date for investors had passed and no payments had been made.  The email got through, but Mr Griffin has not responded.  We would have thought he would be keen to explain his contradictory stance i.e ”I’m not a director of Westway Holdings really, but I haven’t resigned or told Companies House”.  His actions do not tie up with his words.  Here is the latest email allegedly from Joseph Griffin:

Westway are in receipt of funds to pay back all investments.

Due to unexpected restrictions on our current payment platform, payments haven’t been going out as quick as we had hoped. We are therefore in the process of onboarding two new platforms in addition to our current platform to share the load and allow us to get through the payment process quicker.

All investors that have provided AML and bank details should be in receipt of funds by 20th March, although we anticipate sooner.

We do apologise for the delay — we are trying to get these payments out as quickly as possible hence the reason for taking on two new payment providers.

Thank you very much for your continued support and patience whilst we have been working towards returning investments, it is much appreciated.

kind regards,

Joseph Griffin

Westway Holdings Admin Team
Tel : 0203 405 8733
23 Austin Friars, London, EC2N 2QP

Oh no – not the dreaded “payment platform” excuse.  As we said previously, a Constantine Pagonis company is involved in the Westway Holdings investment.  One of Mr Pagonis’ companies provided “back office services” for five scam oil companies.  Our clients closed down four of those companies.  They have dozens of emails referring to “payment platform” issues being the reason why investors were never paid. As soon as we see the payment platform excuse we know they’re trying to hide the bank account which is paying the money.

In the case of the oil companies the use of “payment platforms” was to hide the true source of the payments from investors.  Considering that the Westway Holdings Fake Bond doesn’t exist and it had the involvement of a newly incorporated company with a Romanian citizen and an Estonian company as directors, it makes us very nervous about the source of funds allegedly available to repay investors.

Dr Constantine Pagonis (“unlucky Constantine Pagonis” as he is known in this office due to the number of bad investments his companies are associated with) was also a key player in the Allansons Litigation Funding scandal where investors are facing losses of £20m.

Another of his companies was involved in the Solari Energy scam which was orchestrated by Matthew Stone and Duncan Clark of Renovare Fuels Ltd.  Both men, through their lawyers, have declined to answer questions about their involvement in that scam. They have never actually denied being involved. More on that scam to come.

Back to Westway Holdings – the good news is that the opening line of the latest email says “Westway are in receipt of funds to pay back all investments”.  That means Westway has the money in the bank for all investments.  That’s very welcome but a bit strange.  The money was supposed to come from the sale of a regulated bond.  If the money has already been paid over to Westway then the alleged sale of a regulated bond was always just a smokescreen.

For some reason Westway Holdings is asking investors to provide their bank account details.  We find that odd because the genuine Westway Holdings has all those bank details.  It is supposed to pay interest on a regular basis so why is it now asking investors for their bank details ?  Any investor who is owed interest or capital should be able to just ask Westway to send the money to the bank account that they already have on file.  Something doesn’t ring true about this request for bank details.  It’s almost as if the emails to investors are being sent out by a different firm entirely which doesn’t have any of the Westway company bank records.

We said in our previous article that whole regulated bond story and re-organisation claim looked very suspect.  It appears to be getting worse.  Our advice is that investors should file a report with Action Fraud because that might prompt the authorities to take a closer look.  For whatever reason Westway Holdings is not being transparent or honest with its investors.  There is more to this alleged re-financing than meets the eye.

To view a more recent update on this case please click here.

Many thanks to the people who have contacted us regarding the Advisors For Excellence scam. Advisors For Excellence is a fake share scam whereby investors are being cold-called and are told that they own shares that they knew nothing about. The alleged value of the shares is pitched at a very high level to get people on the hook.  The scam also includes a company allegedly called “Kurt Berlo” which can allegedly vouch for Advisors For Excellence. It has a nice looking website too. The problem for both of these scam organisations is that their domain names were both registered on the same day which was 29th November 2019. These companies are only a few weeks old.

If the Advisors For Excellence scammers have the intended victim’s phone number they will start with a phone call out of the blue. If not, it will be a standard introductory email.  Here’s one of their typical follow-up emails after they’ve called an intended victim.

From: “admin@advisorsforexcellence.com” <admin@advisorsforexcellence.com>
Date: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
Subject: Case N. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dear XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,

Following your conversation with one of our representatives, please find attached, the documentation required for you to complete and sign to process the sale of your shares.

i. Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
ii. Private Share Purchase Agreement (PSPA)
iii. Payment Settlement Agreement (PSA)

Important
Please confirm receipt of this email.

After your perusal, we ask that you initial each page and sign each document where indicated this will allow us to process your sale and execute all legal processes.

Once all documents have been completed please send back the signed copies to the email address stated.

Send your signed documents in a good legible order.

Once your documents have been returned they will be submitted to the compliance department to ensure all is in good order.

If however you do not wish to actively pursue the sale,  then please notify us by return so we can forward you a Notice of Default which you need to complete and return so we may notify the relevant parties involved that you do not wish to proceed.

We are currently processing a large amount of applications regarding this matter and therefore we are facing specific deadlines and would ask that you return your paperwork promptly so as not to delay proceedings.

Should you have any questions regarding the completion of these documents, please contact your representative  by email or phone on the numbers given.

Regards,

Joseph Goldberg

Administration Team

www.advisorsforexcellence.com |  info@advisorsforexcellence.com
Tel +1(917)-773-3929     43-30 147th Street, 2nd Fl, Flushing, New York 11355

The branding quality for the Advisors For Excellence scam is very high. For many people the thought of having free shares which they didn’t even know about, coupled with the quality of the branding and the legal jargon in the documents, is enough to make them believe it is a genuine opportunity. It is a scam. As can be seen from the documents below Advisors for Excellence has put a lot of effort into the scam. They ask their intended victims to pay money into “an escrow account”. If anyone does pay their money over that will be the last time they ever see it. It is likely the situation will get worse because the scammers will want more. They always do.

Below are some documents used by Advisors For Excellence in the scam. Any identifying text has been removed to protect the source. We can guarantee that the pdf files are virus-free.

2_Advisors for Excellence_NDA_REDACTED

3_Advisors for Excellence_Private Stock Purchase_REDACTED

4_Advisors For Excellence_Stock Purchase and Escrow Agreement_REDACTED

5_Advisors For Excellence_Verification Instructions_REDACTED

The important thing is that we’ve seen these documents before in other share scams so it doesn’t matter what the company is called. In this case it is Advisors For Excellence but it could be any name. The principle is the same – nobody ever has free shares they didn’t know about – EVER. It’s too good to be true which means that it isn’t true ! NEVER PAY WHEN SOMEONE SAYS THEY HAVE FREE SHARES YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT.

Finally, to make matters worse, if anyone pays money to the Advisors For Excellence / Kurt Berlo scam (or any other similarly structured share scam) it doesn’t end with that payment. They will always go back to their victim for another bite. Typically they will say that they need a bit more money to complete the deal. If the victim pays that extra money the scammers will come back again and again to get more money each time. This will continue until the victim says enough is enough. That’s when the scammers will turn nasty. They will say the victim signed agreements which means he/she is legally obliged to pay their fees. They will say they have lost money in the share transaction and if the victim doesn’t pay them $XXXX to compensate them for their losses, they will sue the victim in the US and make them bankrupt. For many people who have little knowledge of the law it will be the first time they have ever been threatened in this way. Some will pay more money believing the threat to be true and because they are worried about being sued in the USA. Of course the threat isn’t real because they are fraudsters, but they will prey on the victim’s distress.

To summarise – Advisors For Excellence is a global share scam. Do not pay them. Report the approach to your law enforcement authority.

Investor Support Groups.

We are often contacted by investors who have fallen victim to follow-on-frauds.  We are also often contacted by investors who have been persuaded to send money to a scammer’s crypto currency account. Those accounts are in countries like Estonia, Ukraine, Romania and others.

In most of those kinds of cases cases we simply can’t do anything at all to recover the money. It is pretty much untraceable. We take a look and don’t charge for our opinion. All we can do is highlight the scam on our blog page with the aim of warning others so that they don’t get taken in by the scam.

It is very frustrating to hear from investors where there is simply nothing we can do to help them. The costs are just too great for investors to bear and the chance of recovery is virtually nil. There are some scams out there where only law enforcement authorities stand any chance of tracing the money and even then the success rate is very low.

The difficulty for an investor is how to persuade their local law enforcement authority to investigate the scam. Many experienced Police officers can tell at a glance what the chances are and they are not keen to spend time on what they perceive to be a lost cause.  We have sympathy for the Police in these cases because some of these follow-on-frauds are highly sophisticated with many, many layers of protections in place. It is a very time-consuming and difficult job to peel away those layers and sometimes it just isn’t possible. Sometimes you peel the layers away and finally come up against a final layer controlled by a Mr Chin Nyugen based in Szechuan province in China. This guy, if he even exists, is one of 1 million Chin Nyugen’s. You’ve reached the end of the line.

We always recommend investors report scams to the Police so that there is a record on the system. In most countries reports can be filed online. The simple truth is that one report is unlikely to lead to an investigation, but the more reports there are the greater the chance that someone will be persuaded to look into it.

Although we often tell people that we can’t help in these cases we have decided that there is something we can do. We have decided that we can put victims in contact with other victims through Investor Support Groups so they can share experiences and you never know, someone might be able to add a piece to the overall jigsaw which makes the picture clearer. We’re not doing this to make money because it is a free service. We are willing to do this just so that people realise they should not feel foolish or embarrassed or give themselves a hard time if they’ve been scammed. Scammers only target nice, decent people who have kind hearts and see the good in others. Scammers don’t waste their time with hard cases.

We will make introductions to Investor Support Groups so that if one person in a group is able to persuade their local law enforcement authority to investigate then the rest may be able to piggy-back on that investigation. We will not do this for cases which we take on ourselves.

Recently we posted an article on Brookfield Investment Funds. We have no chance of catching these crooks and recovering funds. Brookfield Investment Funds is clearly run by an organised and very experienced criminal gang. The quality of their marketing materials, emailed materials, branding, documents and the extent of their reach tells us that this is a very high level fraud. These people are organised and professional. They have several scams operating at the same time and they are taking in millions. If an investor queries the bank account they have been asked to send money to then Brookfield can provide them with another bank account in a different country within the hour. They have a very large choice of money mule accounts. We have been contacted by investors across the world who have been taken in by this fraud so they are ideal to be our first Investor Support Group.

From our perspective we are interested in Brookfield Investment Funds because we believe they are the same people who operated the St Johns Asset Management scam and the Van Gossum Consult scam. We have clients in both those scams and we have been making progress. We haven’t written any updates because the information is sensitive, but when we feel it is right to publish we will.

So, we will be writing to the investors who have contacted us about Brookfield Investment Funds to ask whether they would like to be connected to other victims. This will be the first Investor Support Group we will establish. There is no charge and we don’t want to be involved in it in any way. Investor Support Groups are for investors only and will be managed by investors, not by us.

For some scams, where recovery appears virtually impossible, it can help investors a great deal to be supported by others who have been scammed by the same people. We will check every person we introduce to the groups because scammers always try to infiltrate investor groups.

What’s in it for us ? Well, we hope group leaders will keep us informed if there is a breakthrough. It is surprising how many scams which appear to be entirely separate and appear to have no connection with each other actually involve the same people controlling the scams from the shadows. We know Brookfield Investment Funds is linked to two of our cases, but we cannot charge Brookfield victims to investigate because we don’t charge investors if we believe the chances of recovery are low. However, a group of motivated investors may be able to allocate enough of their time to be able to make progress where we cannot. The key will be getting a local law enforcement authority to pick up the case. If that happens we will provide as much information as we can on the scam and on other linked scams.

On that matter, we have been informed that one of the cases linked to Brookfield Investment Funds has been referred to Interpol. We don’t know much more than that, but if we are contacted we will be happy to provide our background information on these cases. To view the previous article on Brookfield Investment Funds click here.

We have been approached by a number of investors who bought short-term bonds from Westway Holdings Ltd.  We wrote about Westway Holdings in 2019. Please click here to view.

Some Westway Holdings bonds have reached full term and the company has not repaid investors.  The reason given by the company is “we need to re-finance”.  The company has also defaulted on the interest payments to bondholders whose bonds do not mature for another couple of years.

Investors have been promised that they will be paid in full before Friday 6^th March 2020.  We are watching developments very closely because if payments are not made we will act. We don’t like what we have discovered. What is it that we don’t like about the Westway Holdings bonds ?

The first thing is that there are at least 18 linked companies. Money has been spread around these companies without any clear explanation as to why.

The second is that Westway Holdings Ltd has four charges filed over the company. Those charges have been filed by Together Commercial Finance Limited and More Group Capital Services Limited. We come across those lenders on a regular basis. They tend not to be as selective as banks in who they lend money to. Together Commercial Finance Limited was a primary lender to the £76m Carlauren scam, lending money which enabled the scam to expand very rapidly resulting in what is likely to be very large losses for investors.

The third is that the three people who were directors of Westway Holdings Ltd on 1^st January 2019 were not directors by Christmas 2019. All three resigned during the year. They were replaced by a new director, Joseph Michael Griffin, who was appointed in April 2019. He is now the only director registered at Companies House.

Our problem with this is that we have an email from Joseph Michael Griffin in which he states that he was appointed without his permission, has never had any involvement with the company’s finances, does not have any access or control over the company’s bank accounts, does not have any shareholding in the company, and does not receive any salary. We may be naive, but that doesn’t sound like it meets the criteria of “a company director”. What is it that he is actually directing ? We are a bit bemused as to why someone who finds himself in that position does not immediately inform Companies House and have himself removed as a director. It is a very simple process, but he has not done so. If what he says is true then he looks to be the fall guy. That’s why we take his protestations with a pinch of salt. He isn’t behaving in the way that a normal people put in this position would.

The fourth problem we have with the Westway Holdings bonds is that we see Ipsum Invest Ltd is involved. Ipsum Invest is owned by Dr Constantine Pagonis. His companies are involved in at least 8 failed investments which have resulted in huge losses for investors. Dr Pagonis doesn’t lose any money though. He always makes money from scams. Ipsum Invest is FCA-regulated, but you wouldn’t want Dr Constantine Pagonis as your investment fund manager. He seems to be very incredibly unlucky in his choice of project partners. One of Dr Pagonis’s companies provides ‘back-office services’. Now that’s interesting…..

The fifth problem we have is that we’re not sure who is now responsible for the Westway Holdings bonds. We know the director says he isn’t running the company, so who is ? Investors are receiving emails from Westway Holdings which contain no name, unless there is a person there who is called Mr “Back-Office Admin” because ‘back-office admin’ has become the usual email sign-off. Occasionally that is changed to ‘Westway Holdings Admin Team’ but still no name. It is always a very worrying sign when nobody at a company which has raised around £20m from investors is willing to put their name to company announcements. Look at that – ‘back office’ mentioned in two paragraphs in a row. What a coincidence.

The names of people given to us who run the ‘front office’ are Kate Wielgus and Roxanne Dundas. We think we’ve come across Roxanne before. We’re going back through our records to see where that was. Apparently the “re-financing” is being handled by a Harry Shea. We will see.

The final major problem we have with the Westway Holdings bonds is this paragraph from their latest anonymous email broadcast:

Finally, we would like to mention that the listed bond we referred to in our last email is now live on the Frankfurt Exchange with ISIN number XS2123281201. We will write to you further about that bond under separate cover.

We registered with the Frankfurt Exchange and we entered that number in their ISIN Search. We got the message “No entries matched”. We tried it without the XS at the front – no entries matched. We then tried to search by name under the letter ‘W’ on the assumption that the bond would be called ‘Westway Holdings’ – no entries matched. There are no regulated bonds registered under that name or even close to that name. There are no regulated bonds registered with that ISIN number.

We have to say that even if the Westway refinancing story was true it is hugely optimistic of them to believe that they can refinance such large sums in such a short period of time.

It is all looking decidedly dodgy.

If you are a Westway Holdings investor please contact us. If you get paid out let us know too. We will publish it.

Please click here to view a more recent article on Westway Holdings.