With paint peeling from the windowsills and a scraggly Buddleia growing amidst the weed-choked front garden, it is scarcely recognisable as the headquarters of a £50 billion global business conglomerate.
Nonetheless, this run-down £155,000 terraced property in Bolton serves as the registered address for a series of businesses purporting to operate as major multinational corporations with offices across four continents.
Among these businesses are 1 Stallion Limited, allegedly a financial and mining enterprise with an annual turnover of £12.5 billion; e-bank Ltd, claiming to be a banking institution generating £952 million in revenue; and Avantulo SA Ltd, an oil and gas company with an estimated £12.5 billion in share capital.
The businesses were uncovered by Dan Neidle, from the think tank Tax Policy Associates, in a report highlighting the growing issue of fraudulent and fictitious entities being registered on Companies House, including those falsely presenting themselves as banks.
Accompanying these registrations are fabricated financial statements designed to create the illusion of substantial value, raising concerns that these entities may be used to deceive unsuspecting individuals into transferring funds for non-existent services or investment schemes.
In many instances, individuals residing in properties listed as the official addresses of these sham companies on Companies House— the UK’s official corporate register— are unaware of their involvement.
When MailOnline attempted to make contact with the property, no one responded. The blinds were drawn, and neighbours indicated they had no knowledge of the occupants.
Not far from the one-bedroom terraced house in Bolton is another entity, XYZ Investment Holdings Ltd, formerly Stallion Holdings Ltd, which purports to hold £7 billion in assets and generate £2.5 billion in annual revenue.
A Facebook page under the company’s previous name features a concerning “job advert,” seeking “good looking and single” women aged 25 to 30 to apply for the position of “executive secretary,” offering a salary of just £4,788 per year.
Stallion Holdings Ltd also maintained a website crafted to project an image of a legitimate financial institution, including a mission statement claiming to prioritize “putting clients first” and “treating your business as if it were our own.”
Mr. Neidle has reviewed the filed accounts for all companies registered at both the terraced property and the nearby site. Based on numerous errors, spelling mistakes, and other tell-tale signs, he asserts that the documents are fraudulent.
In the case of XYZ Investment Holdings Ltd, despite the company’s claim to operate in the finance sector, its accounts mistakenly state that it is “a leading international supplier of components to the door and window industry.”
“You can tell these accounts are clearly fake,” Mr. Neidle, a former specialist tax lawyer with 25 years of experience, told MailOnline. “They contain odd phrasing and typographical errors. Then there’s a line about supplying doors and windows, which is clearly copied and pasted from somewhere else.”
“It’s difficult to determine the precise motive behind these companies. What they are doing is unlikely to be legitimate, and it’s probably happening outside the UK. Anyone in the UK who saw that registered address and the obvious flaws in the accounts would be immediately sceptical.”
Any entity wishing to operate under the title of “bank” in the UK must secure a licence from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
While there is no evidence to suggest that e-bank Ltd ever obtained such a licence, another company connected to the Bolton properties appears to have secured FCA registration as a small payment institution.
Stallion Financial Investments plc applied to the FCA in 2017 for permission to offer regulated financial services but was rejected after failing to respond to the FCA’s queries. It also failed to file required accounts and was subsequently dissolved.
However, a year later, a new company, AR Worldwide Services Ltd, was established, and it successfully obtained FCA registration as a small payments institution. Stallion Holdings Ltd was listed as the first director of AR Worldwide.
Small payment institutions are permitted to offer a limited range of services, including foreign remittances, which, as previously reported by MailOnline, have been flagged by law enforcement as a potential channel for money laundering activities.
Mr. Neidle expressed significant concern that AR Worldwide, a company he believes to be fraudulent and falsely posing as a legitimate financial institution, was able to obtain FCA registration.
The FCA confirmed that Stallion was only appointed as a director of AR Worldwide in December 2019, a month after the firm had already been registered with the regulator.
In response to the concerns, the FCA stated that it had since “overhauled” its internal checks and was seeking additional powers to conduct more thorough assessments of firms applying for registration.#newsafro_
