Sky Capital Holdings Inc Money Mule Account.

Following our recent article on the LXK Inc and Wellington Capital Group scam – LINK, we have been contacted by a person who invested in that scam and who has also fallen victim to the subsequent follow-on-fraud.  A follow-on-fraud is where scammers contact victims of investment scams claiming to have recovered their money. The funds can be released upon payment of a fee.  The victim in this case was asked to pay the fee into a bank account in the name of Sky Capital Holdings Inc. Unfortunately he saw our Scam Alert after he had paid his money.

You will note that Sky Capital Holdings Inc is allegedly a company based in Beijing, China, but is having the money paid to a Wells Fargo bank in California.  We believe this to be a money mule account whereby any money deposited in the account will be immediately swept out and transferred on to the scammers.

There is another money mule account which is being used by the same scam. This is an account in the name of PT STOCK VALUE INDONESIA and the bank is based in Jakarta.  We have copied the bank account details below:

BANK:   UOB INDONESIA

BENEFICIARY NAME:   PT STOCK VALUE INDONESIA

SWIFT:   BBIJIDJA

USD ACCOUNT NUMBER:   538 900 0486

We have come across this money mule account before when it was being used in a different scam.  We wrote to the bank two years ago to get it closed down, but clearly it is still in operation and still stealing money from investors.

Sky Capital Holdings Inc Money Mule Account.

Maddox Capital Partners Scam Alert.

Yesterday we wrote an article – LINK about a follow-on-fraud being perpetrated by an organised crime gang operating under the name of Porterfield Financial Holdings.  The Porterfield scam started in March 2022.  The same group is running several follow-on-frauds from the same office at the same time.  Maddox Capital Partners is another one of them.  The website domain name was purchased in October 2021, but by February 2022 the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK were made aware of the activities of the fake Maddox Capital Partners and issued this warning to the public – LINK.  Within three weeks the scammers were back, repeating the exact same scam under the name of Porterfield Financial Holdings.  They have a conveyor belt of fake companies.

They have been running the same scam for years using the same document but just changing the branding.  Investors have sent us what they have received.  We have removed anything which might indicate their identities and have copied their documents below.

We would draw your attention to the phone numbers for the two companies.  They are the same ! Phone numbers can easily be faked. There are companies which specialise in providing numbers which give the appearance of being in London, Washington, Tokyo etc, but they automatically divert to call centres operated by the scammers which can be based anywhere in the world.

Maddox Capital Partners_Fake Guarantor Form_Redacted

Porterfield Financial Holdings_Fake Guarantor Form_Redacted

Maddox Capital Partners_Fake Invoice_Redacted

Porterfield Financial Holdings_Fake Invoice_Redacted

Needless to say this is a follow-on-fraud targeting investors who have already fallen victim to a scam.  Most likely one of the sales agents or the “back-office service provider” has sold the contact details of investors to the organised crime call centre so they can hit the phones and send out their email broadcasts.  Do not be fooled by the promise that an organisation is holding funds and all it needs is a small fee to release the money.  It is NEVER true.

Maddox Capital Partners Scam Alert.

Porterfield Financial Holdings Scam Alert.

An organised crime group calling itself Porterfield Financial Holdings is carrying out a follow-on-fraud against people who invested in Green IS Group Ltd (“GIS Group”).  GIS Group sold bonds to ordinary retail investors to raise funds for its alleged forestry operation in Brazil.  The company was wound up by the High Court on 16^th March 2022 and is now in the hands of the Official Receiver.

The Porterfield Financial Holdings scam model is one that we have reported on many times.  This scam group uses different company names and slightly different branding each time, but the documents are always the same and the scam has been going on for years.  The scam model they are using is the one where the scammers pretend to be working with, or pretend to be, the Official Receiver.

They claim to be holding funds (in this case £22.2m) which is available for distribution to investors.  All the investors have to do is pay an upfront fee.  As we have said before in other articles, the Official Receiver or any other liquidator WILL NEVER charge an upfront fee to any creditor.

We have copies of the documents that are being used in the Porterfield Financial Holdings Scam.  We have seen identical versions before because the documents never change.  Porterfield has a scam website which follows the same format as the other scam websites they have used in the past.  Here is an excerpt of some text from their Home Page.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Porterfield Financial Holdings has reached demanding valuations, fuelled in part by central bank policies.

​Idiosyncratic opportunities are rising in an increasingly late-cycle market exhibiting rising dispersion and periodic bouts of volatility.

Credit and equity events are ever-present in the market and provide natural de-correlation to market beta.

Such a backdrop requires a dedicated portfolio approach and asset class flexibility to exploit the opportunity set, navigate market stress and deliver uncorrelated returns.

Here is a link to an article we wrote in August 2021 on a follow-on-fraud called Premier Capital Finance – LINK.  The documents are identical to those used by Porterfield and here’s the text from the Premier Capital Finance Home Page:

THE OPPORTUNITY

Premier Capital Finance have reached demanding valuations, fuelled in part by central bank policies.

Idiosyncratic  opportunities are rising in an increasingly late cycle market  exhibiting rising dispersion and periodic bouts of volatility.

Credit and equity events are ever present in the market and provide natural de-correlation to market beta.

Such  a backdrop requires a dedicated portfolio approach and asset class  flexibility to exploit the opportunity set, navigate market stress and  deliver uncorrelated returns.

It’s identical. And just to highlight the point here’s another piece of text from a different scam website which goes under the address of capfinuk.com – LINK to scam website.  It was launched in February 2022:

THE OPPORTUNITY

Capital Finance has reached demanding valuations, fuelled in part by central bank policies.

​Idiosyncratic opportunities are rising in an increasingly late-cycle market exhibiting rising dispersion and periodic bouts of volatility.

Credit and equity events are ever-present in the market and provide natural de-correlation to market beta.

Such a backdrop requires a dedicated portfolio approach and asset class flexibility to exploit the opportunity set, navigate market stress and deliver uncorrelated returns.

It’s also identical.  This organised crime group is working out of a call centre and doesn’t like to have all its eggs in one basket so it often runs several follow-on-frauds at the same time.  This is another trait that we see quite often in follow-on-frauds.

Over the next few days we’ll issue another Scam Alert on a follow-on-fraud which started in January 2022 and is being operated by the same people. We will publish the documents they are using so readers can compare and see that they are exactly the same. Not only that, but the phone number for this second scam is the same phone number used by Porterfield Financial Holdings !

Porterfield Financial Holdings Scam Alert.

Essex and London Properties Trial Concludes.

The trial of seven men involved in the Essex and London Properties scam has concluded with five of the men being found guilty and two of them acquitted. At this point we suggest you click across to our previous article – LINK HERE to read some of the background before coming back to this article.

The guilty men were:

MOHAMMED TANVEER

ABDUL MUKITH

FLORIAN PIERINI

MOHAMMAD HUSSAIN

JEFFREY RAZAQ

The men who were acquitted were:

MITCHELL MALLIN

ANTHONY WHYMARK

Looking at the men who were acquitted we were surprised that Mitchell Mallin was found not guilty. He was the only director of the company. With hindsight perhaps this is not such a surprise after all. The scam came into being in August 2015 when Terence Smith, a relative of Mitchell Mallin, became the sole director of Essex and London Properties Ltd. Within 3 months Terence Smith died and Mitchell Mallin was appointed. We have repeatedly said that Mitchell Mallin did not have the ability to establish contracts, oversee sales agents or run a back office. There had to be smarter people behind this operation. It was also clear that Mitchell Mallin wasn’t going to be the person making the big bucks out of this scam.

Anthony Whymark ran a sales agent company called APEX ALTERNATIVE MARKETING LTD – Link to Companies House, which traded under the name Apex Alternatives. We don’t know the reason why he was acquitted, but that is potentially good news for a lot of investors. Anthony Whymark / Apex Alternatives was involved in selling a lot of scams and investors in some of those scams may now be able to pursue their claims against him.

As far as the guilty men are concerned we will start with Mohammed Tanveer, 33, of Coventry Road, Ilford. He had already pleaded guilty before the trial to conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to launder the proceeds of fraud. There was a Muhammed Tanveer – Link to newspaper article (different spelling of Mohammed) who was jailed in April 2019 for money-laundering offences. He was aged 30 at the time. The ages tie up.

Abdul Mukith, 42, of Great Godfreys, Writtle, is a man we have been able to tie into other scams. Here is an article from July 2021 – LINK confirming his involvement in the Coastal Supported Living scam.

Florian Pierini, 35, of Morley Road, Leytonstone, London, is a typical second-hand car salesman figure who spends a lot of time admiring himself in front of any shiny surface he can find. He’s a low-level operator who is desperate to climb up in the scam world. Florian Pierini pitched the European Property Coin scam to his accomplices above and was given money by them to get that scam off the ground. Hopefully the Police will now start to investigate that scam too. Here is an article we wrote in July 2018 almost four years ago – LINK when we had started to expose the European Property Coin scam.

We still don’t know very much about Mohammad Hussain, 31, of Church Close, Kidlington, Oxfordshire. We’re hoping more will come out about him when the trial papers are available.

Finally there is Jeffrey Razaq, 60, of Gunton Cliff, Lowestoft, Suffolk. Jeffrey Razaq is a disqualified director linked to other scams. Most recently he has been acting as the arranger for a ‘vertical farming’ scam. As we mentioned in our previous article the farmer they were intending to partner with tried to persuade us that Jeffrey Razaq was not a defendant in this case. He had fallen for Razaq’s story that he had been helping the Police and was actually a witness for the prosecution !

Sentencing is due to take place on 25th July.

To view the public release of information on the Essex Police website please click on this LINK. 

The Police will now be able to take steps to recover money and assets from the guilty parties under The Proceeds Of Crime Act (“POCA”). The aim will be to compensate as many victims as possible. We have helped some victims of the Essex and London Properties scam establish a legal action against an involved party who was not charged with a criminal offence. That legal action is underway and is expected to reach a conclusion next year.

Essex and London Properties Trial Concludes.

Domain Name mncio-ssl.cn Scam.

We have had this scam before. We spend a lot of time issuing Scam Alerts for frauds targeted at individual investors, but for once here is a scam targeted at businesses. It’s basically a domain name blackmail operation. If we were to reply to this email below they would know that we are interested and would ask for a lot of money to “protect” our brand name in Hong Kong or China. If we then decide not to pay them they would buy up the brand name / domain name and then claim that scammers have bought it and they can get it back for a large fee. They would already know that we were concerned.  Domain names in HK and China are cheap.  We couldn’t care less because we’re wise to it, but some bigger brands or small businesses might be concerned about receiving this email and be tempted to respond. There’s no doubt that China is a big market for some companies, but they should ignore this email if they receive it.

Here is the email we received.

lynn.d@mncio-ssl.cn

Dear President or CEO,

 Please read this letter carefully since this is an urgent case. Recently, we received the registration request from FeiYu Global Ltd applying to register safeorscam brand and domain names(cn hk etc), which have same main body as your company’s name. We send this letter to confirm with your company whether or not you authorize them to register those names. Please give me your thoughts ASAP so as to let us carry on, Thanks.

Best Regards,

Lynn Du

Tel:+86 559-5144-820

Fax:+86 559-5144-820

Address:Sunon Plaza No 399 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, China – LINK to scam website – DO NOT CLICK.

We checked the domain of mncio-ssl.cn.  It was bought in November 2021.

This is the second attempted scam operating out of China we have reported on this week. The other one was this article on LXK / Wellington Capital Group – LINK. You can click on this link because it is safe.  It looks like the organised crime groups in that region are starting to expand their operations.

Domain Name mncio-ssl.cn Scam.

LXK Inc / Wellington Capital Group Scam.

In June 2019 we issued a Scam Alert about LXK Inc and Wellington Capital Group.  You can read that original article here – LINK.  This is a scam which was primarily focused on investors resident in Asia, but as with all scams the global reach of the internet allows scammers to attract investors from around the world.

That article was written almost three years ago.  To bring things up to date, investors who are trying to recover their money have begun to receive details of a classic follow-on-fraud scam designed to squeeze more money from the victims. This follow-on-fraud is attempting to convince investors that the Bank Of China has come to their rescue and has agreed to buy up all investors’ shares in LXK Inc.  As with every follow-on-fraud the victims’ funds can only be released if a fee is paid.  That’s the scam.

We have copied their introductory email below:

From: Bank of China <LLiang@bocxbj.com>

Subject: Re: LXK Shares

Date:

To:

Cc: Bank of China <pzhang@bocxbj.com>

Dear

We appreciate the inquiry and response to the LXK Inc. class action notice and I will outline Bank of China’s role in this transaction.

Bank of China was not a participant in the negotiated settlement in fact before we were contracted to facilitate the settlement, we had little knowledge of LXK was or the history of the company, so we did our due diligence before we accepted the appointment by the CSRC to contact all the shareholders and execute the forms and distribute the funds.

I have attached the CSRC official document outlining the lawsuit and settlement particulars as well as a road map as to the distribution of assets and those assigned to facilitate the settlement.

I have attached all the closing documents package needed for settlement and transfer, the documents include and invoice, designated banking form, and the bank details for required fees for settlement.

I have also included a Letter of Intent/Proof of Funds from Bank of China Corporate the designated holding account that will distribute the funds to Bank of China International Holdings Ltd for distribution,

As stated on the invoice attached, we will be collecting $XXXXXXX USD in Escrow Transaction Fee (ETF), that consist of Legal, Escrow and Administration Fee’s, these fees are required and will be remitted to JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A./BOC LTD Holdings Inc. to be monitored and administered by the regulator (CSRC) as to not only have an orderly transaction but to discourage any malfeasance or collusion by any party, the banking details are attached.

Imperial Transfer Ltd. (Imperialtransferltd.com) will be the assigned transfer agent of record they will be responsible for retrieving your signed share certificates after you have received your settlement payment.

If you agree to the terms of this settlement as there is no negotiation and all fees must be paid prior to collecting your settlement funds, as your settlement funds will not be released to BOC International Ltd for distribution until the required fees have been collected, those are your terms for settlement by order of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. 

To expedite this transaction, we need you to initial the invoice and send back as well as the banking form filled out as to where you want your settlement proceeds, and when you have made your fees transfer, please remit a transfer copy, we’re very efficient and expeditious, you will have your proceeds within 14 days of fees being collected and credited thanks again for your response I hope I have made this transaction process very clear. 

Thank you for your interest and participation

​Best Regards,

Li (Lee) Liang

Sr, VP International Banking

Bank of China, International Holdings LTD.

Ying Tai Business Center

#28 Finance St, Tower 2 15th Floor

Xicheng District, Beijing 100000

86 (10) 6622 9000 

LLiang@bocxbj.com

www.bocigroup.com

We have copied below a couple of the documents which the scammers have been using.  Any text that might reveal the identity of the investor who sent this to us has been blacked out.

LXK Scam_Fake Confirmation Of Funds_Source Details Redacted.

LXK Scam_Fake Regulator Announcement.

LXK Scam_Fake Escrow Arrangements.

These documents might fool some people but it’s quite easy to prove this is a scam.  For a start, we took a look at the email address they use.  They use the domain suffix of “bocxbj.com” e.g pzhang@bocxbj.com as seen above.  We assume the ‘boc’ was intended to stand for Bank of China and the ‘xbj’ is possibly meant to suggest Beijing.  We did a quick check on this domain history.  This domain was purchased in November 2019.  We’re fairly sure that the Beijing branch of Bank Of China would have been using email before November 2019.  The other thing we can say with a fair degree of confidence is that it is highly unlikely that Bank of China runs its operations through servers located in MISSOURI, KANSAS !  That’s where the servers for ‘bocxbj’ are located.

The email advises investors that share transfer documents will be handled by Imperial Transfer Ltd with the website address https://imperialtransferltd.com/ .  It’s a rubbish website, but that’s not surprising.  The domain was only bought in January 2022.  This scam is only a couple of months old.

The email finishes with a clever trick.  They provide a link to their website.  Only it’s not their website because it doesn’t use the domain name they use.  It’s the website of a company that was formed 20 years ago.  They hope that the intended victim doesn’t spot that the website address is different to their address.

If you ever receive anything claiming to be from the Bank of China or from the China Securities Regulatory Commission requiring you to pay money to recover an investment you made, your first thought should always be – SCAM !  Check it out thoroughly before you even think about paying any money.  There is a 99.999% probability it’s a scam.

LXK Inc / Wellington Capital Group Scam.

Since this article was published, two money mule bank accounts linked to the scam have been identified. Further details can be found in this article – SKY CAPITAL HOLDINGS INC MONEY MULE ACCOUNT.

Essex and London Properties – Hearing Update.

On 18th February 2022 we wrote this article – LINK about the criminal case against parties involved in the Essex and London Properties investment scam. Six weeks later and the case is still being heard at Southwark court in London. Here is an extract from the court listings for 5th April 2022:

Southwark Court Hearing List 5th April 2022

We are interested in the six people described as appearing in Court 6, but it looks like we may be the only ones interested in that court today. We see that in Court 5 there is one ‘Imran Khan’ appearing. It couldn’t be could it ?

But in Court 3 there is a certain ‘Boris Becker’ appearing. Yes, we’re fairly certain it is THE Boris Becker.  We think we know which courtroom will attract most interest.  We doubt there will be that much attention on the Essex and London Properties defendants who are:

ABDUL MUKITH
ANTHONY WHYMARK
FLORIAN PIERINI
JEFFERY RAZAQ
MITCHELL MALLIN
MOHAMMAD DIDAR HUSSAIN

Here’s an interesting fact. A few weeks ago we were contacted by a woman who wanted information on Jeffrey Razaq. Her son, who owns a vertical farming business (we’ll explain in a later article) had been dealing with a Jeffrey Razaq who had admitted that he was a disqualified director, but it had all been a misunderstanding and he was really an innocent party. She wanted to know if Jeffrey Razaq was being prosecuted for the Essex and London Properties investment scam. We told her he was.  To be fair, she was quite a sensible person with a standard level of common sense. Her son however, was not. He did not believe her. He had been presented with a very profitable deal by Jeffery Razaq and he just didn’t want to believe it was a scam. She asked us to speak to her son.  Incidentally, Jeffery Razaq wasn’t listed as a director of the company setting up this new scam. That’s not a surprise, but those who are listed as directors are already known to us. That’s also not a surprise. More of that in the later article because we intend to draw attention to this fledgling scam.

Things didn’t go well. This chap just didn’t want to believe the facts. He told us that Jeffrey Razaq was not being prosecuted for his role in Essex and London Properties. He said that Jeffrey Razaq was a nice bloke who he had spoken to on many occasions and that Jeffrey was actually helping the Police with their case and was a witness for the prosecution. This was despite there being Press articles about the court hearing listing the defendants which included Jeffrey Razaq.

Occasionally we come across people who drive us nuts and will argue black is white. We told him that it is not normal for a court to write the names of prosecution witnesses under ‘Defendants’ !

So, perhaps somebody ought to point out to the Judge that there’s been a terrible administrative error.  Jeffery Razaq is not a defendant. He is a prosecution witness. But it doesn’t stop there. It’s a complete mess. We’ve heard that Florian Pierini is actually the defence barrister, Abdul Mukith is a journalist covering the case, and Mitchell Mallin is the cleaner who was giving the courtroom a quick polish and somehow ended up in the dock with the other innocent bystanders. What a travesty of justice !

There should be seven defendants but one has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced at another hearing. These six defendants have pleaded not guilty.  The case continues.

Essex and London Properties – Hearing Update.

Concept Capital Group Scam.

In December 2020, a site which we now moderate called Bondreview – LINK wrote an article on Concept Capital Group. The text of that article is copied below, followed by our updated April 2022 article on the activities of this company.

We review Concept Capital’s investment paying 10% per year

DECEMBER 17, 2020 

Concept Capital offers an unregulated investment in pre-fab “static homes” paying a “guaranteed” 10% per year.

Investors invest their money to Concept Capital in units of £39,999 (although the website suggests that the minimum investment is £20,000), which is used to buy a static home to be rented to low-income government-supported tenants. Concept Capital “guarantees” to pay the investor 10% per year. Investors’ money is tied up for two years, after which Concept Capital undertakes to buy the static home back from them.

Concept Capital is an FCA-regulated firm, being an appointed representative of What Credit Limited. Its investment opportunity is however unregulated; What Credit (and by extension Concept) is only authorised to offer credit broking and debt counselling and not to run investment schemes.

This is notwithstanding Concept Capital’s claim on its website to be regulated.

Is this a regulated product?
Yes. The unit(s) we provide are regulated by the National Caravan Committee Approval

As an investment scheme Concept Capital is unregulated. The National Caravan Committee does not regulate investment schemes.

The investment is currently being promoted on Facebook by unregulated introducers.

Who are Concept Capital?

Concept Capital Group Ltd is 100% owned by sole director Ian Elliott.

According to his LinkedIn profile, prior to founding Concept Capital, Elliot was a materials manager at a builder’s merchant.

Concept Capital Group Ltd was incorporated in October 2019 and due to its young age is yet to file accounts.

Concept Capital claims the investment has a “6 Year proven track record”, based on a “trial period” run between Social Park Housing (who manages the homes) and Knight Mobile Homes (who manufactures them). The reality is that as an investment opportunity, Concept Capital did not exist before October 2019 at the earliest (when its company and website were registered).

How safe is Concept Capital?

Concept Capital claims to offer “guaranteed return of 10% per annum”, “guaranteed buyback” and “an opportunity to invest ethically and with peace of mind”.

In reality, as with any investment in an unregulated individual company, Concept Capital is an inherently high risk investment with a risk of up to 100% loss.

The guarantee to buy investors’ static homes back is dependent on Concept Capital having the money to do so. Otherwise investors will be trying to sell park homes on the open market. In which case, given that they aren’t going to be offering a 10% per year return, they should expect a significant loss.

The investment literature states that investors will own individual static homes with chassis numbers, but how this squares with the minimum investment of £20,000 being lower than the static home unit cost of £39,999 is not clear. [Update 14.01.21: Concept Capital have told me that for investments of £20,000, Concept Capital bought the other half of the static home. This option is no longer available for new investment.]

Bearing this in mind, should Concept Capital fail to make enough money to pay investors 10% per year on top of their own costs, there is an inherent risk that they will default on their “guarantee” to return the investor’s money in return for the static home.

The worst case scenario is that Concept Capital cannot even supply a static home to the investor and the investor loses up to 100% of their money.

If investors plan to rely on Concept Capital’s “guarantees”, it is essential that they hire professional due diligence specialists (working for themselves, not Concept) to confirm that in the event of a default, the assets of Concept Capital would be valuable and liquid enough to compensate all investors. Investors should not simply rely on what Concept tells them about their assets.

Concept Capital claim to offer a “Diverse Portfolio” on their website on the basis that investors can “Work with our business development team and grow your portfolio holdings”. Investing more money in a single unregulated company, as Concept Capital suggest here, is the exact opposite of diversification.

Regulatory risk

[Update 14.01.21: This section has been amended after contact from Concept Capital – see below.]

My original version of this review flagged the risk that the Financial Conduct Authority deems this to be an unauthorised collective investment, given that if an individual investor’s static home does not pay sufficient returns to pay the investor 10% per year, Concept Capital’s “guarantee” requires it to pay the investor from other resources.

Concept Capital denied they are running a collective investment scheme and told me that the FCA contacted them in November 2020 and, after Concept Capital answered their queries, ended their investigation without taking further action.

Regardless of whether Concept Capital legally qualifies as a collective investment scheme or not, if the FCA has investigated and closed its file, the risk of regulatory action appears to be moot. The FCA has been contacted for comment.

Note that regardless of the FCA apparently giving Concept Capital the green light to continue operating its investment scheme, all the other risks identified in this article still apply.

Should I invest in Concept Capital?

This blog does not give financial advice. The following are statements of publicly available facts or widely accepted investment principles, not a personalised recommendation. Investors should consult a regulated independent financial adviser if they are in any doubt.

As with any unregulated investment, this investment is only suitable for sophisticated and/or high net worth investors who have a substantial existing portfolio and are prepared to risk 100% loss of their money.

Any investment paying 10% per year is inherently extremely high risk. As an individual, illiquid security with a risk of total and permanent loss, buying a static home from Concept Capital is much higher risk than a mainstream diversified stockmarket fund.

Before investing investors should ask themselves:

• How would I feel if the investment defaulted and I lost 100% of my money?
• Do I have a sufficiently large portfolio that the loss of 100% of my investment would not damage me financially?
• Have I conducted due diligence to ensure the asset-backed security can be relied on?

If you are looking for a “guaranteed” investment, you should not invest in unregulated investment schemes with an inherent risk of up to 100% loss.

Updated Safe Or Scam Article on the Concept Capital Group Scam – April 2022

We agree with the opinion above, but have spotted a couple of things which weren’t mentioned in the original article.

The original 2019 brochure stated that the investment was a collaboration between three entities. They were Concept Capital Group Ltd, Knight Mobile Homes Ltd (the alleged manufacturer of the mobile homes) and Social Park Housing Ltd (the alleged operator of the mobile home sites). The problem is that Concept Capital Group Ltd had only just been formed in October 2019 i.e no trading history, Knight Mobile Homes Ltd had only just been formed in September 2019 i.e no trading history, and Social Park Housing Ltd had been formed 15 months earlier in June 2018, but had not filed any accounts so its trading history was unknown. As it turns out Social Park Housing filed its first annual accounts covering the period from June 2018 – June 2019 on 5th March 2020. The filing showed that Social Park Housing Ltd was a dormant company in that period and did not trade.  We find that quite surprising because the 2019 CCG investment brochure has the following information related to the trading history of Social Park Housing Ltd:

111 Locations Across the UK (Number of sites that have static homes placed by SPH).
362 Static Homes Placed (Number of static homes placed and rented to date of this publication).
307 Active Contracts in the UK.
98% Occupancy Rate.

These figures are entirely fabricated by CCG.  SPH did not have these figures.  It was a scam. A basic check at Companies House would have revealed this statement in their brochure as being a lie “Social Park Homes and Knight Mobile Homes have been working in conjunction for the past 6 years running a trial period for the proposed new housing concept”.  Clearly that cannot be true because the companies only recently came into existence. Furthermore, CCG cannot even get its partner’s name right. It should have said “Social Park Housing Ltd” and not “Social Park Homes Ltd”. There isn’t a company with the name of Social Park Homes Ltd. At the time of writing this article Social Park Housing Ltd only has one director – Simon Christopher O’Donnell.  Here is a list of his companies from Companies House – LINK. He seems to have been a director of a number of dissolved mobile home companies and others that are in the process of being dissolved. They were all based at the same address. What is also noticeable is the number of companies where he is recorded as having been a director for only one day. Typically when we see this scenario we often find that the director was appointed on Day 1 and then a year or so later he files a resignation form dated Day 1. In other words, when things go wrong with a company a scammer will back-date his resignation form to make it look like he was not involved. Fortunately Companies House records the day that the resignation form was actually submitted to them and the back-dating will show up. We’re sure there’s nothing untoward regarding Mr O’Donnell, but he does seem to have a forgetful memory because he has submitted long overdue resignation forms in more than one company. We find it very hard to believe that the FCA accepted that this group were not running an unregulated collective investment scheme.

One of the key features of the investment was that the investor could request the group to buy back the mobile home from them at two-yearly intervals. For the first few periods they would allegedly receive full refunds. So here we are two years later and there appears to have been a few director resignations.  What a surprise !

The new Concept Capital Group scam brochure has been revamped and now says that the Concept Capital Group has established 300 homes across 112 sites. It looks like 62 homes have disappeared since 2019, but they have added one more site.

The filed accounts of all three companies do not inspire confidence.  They don’t have any money.  Perhaps that’s because they don’t understand the basics of business i.e buy something at a low price, sell at a higher price.  The CCG website offers three types of mobile home. There’s a 1-bedroom home, a 2-bedroom home and a 3-bedroom home. Here is a page from the website where you can buy all of them at the same price of £39,999.  Hmmm….. I think I’ll take the 3-bedroom one please.

Buy To Let Properties – CONCEPT CAPITAL GROUP

But, there’s another issue which makes us question their business skills.  We were contacted by a mobile home manufacturer who had been approached by the Concept Capital Group scam to provide them with a quote for a 2-bed mobile home (so what’s happened to Knight Mobile Homes all of a sudden – have they quietly slipped away)?  Anyway, the price for CCG to buy a 2-bed mobile home was more than £85,000 + vat.  Now, I don’t profess to be a great businessman, but buy at £85,000 and sell at £39,999 doesn’t seem to me to be the blueprint for a great business proposition.

Furthermore, the man from CCG wanted the sale to be done through “their Dubai company”.  What Dubai company ?  There’s no mention of a Dubai company in any of the brochures.

We are wondering whether this is actually a money-laundering operation i.e cleaning up dirty offshore money through seemingly legitimate UK property transactions.  Let’s explore that hypothetical theory.  There’s no way these homes can be sold for £39,999 so somebody is definitely making up the shortfall. Why would anyone do that ?  The brochure says that the home would be in the name of the investor.  This would only work for the money-launderer if they bought back the home from the investor in the future (which they can do).  Then ownership would transfer to the money-launderer for £39,999.  They would own a mobile home which records would show was bought by an investor for £39,999 and was then sold by the investor for the same amount. However, the true value of the property was more than £85,000.

There’s a lot more we could have published, but this should be enough to warn people off this scam investment.  If you have bought a mobile home from Concept Capital Group we recommend that you file a report with Action Fraud in the UK.  You may be involved in a money-laundering operation.

Concept Capital Group Scam.

 

Organised Crime Scammers Arrested in Europol Raid.

On 24th and 25th March 2022, Europol carried out a raid on three call centres in Latvia and Lithuania arresting 108 people involved in selling fake bitcoin, foreign currencies and commodities. The call centres were all operated by the same Organised Crime Gang.  Their scams were earning them an estimated 3m Euro per month.

This is still a drop in the ocean because there are many large-scale organised crime call centres operating in Eastern European countries, the Baltics, Dubai, India, Hong Kong and China. The scammers were communicating with their intended victims in English, Russian, Polish and Hindi.

You can read the full report on this LINK TO EUROPOL WEBSITE.  It is worth visiting the Europol site just to watch the video of the raid.  It’s nice to see scammers hiding under desks with guns pointed at them.

Organised Crime Scammers Arrested in Europol Raid.