Barclays (Barley) Ltd
Chapter 2
2. Contract, Due Diligence & Payment
We received the countersigned contracts directly from info@barleyinvestments.co.uk, and verified that the domain “barleyinvestments.co.uk” was registered and the registered address at Barclays Bank’s London address at Churchill Place.
2.1 Contract
Barley’s mandate (KS) sent us a set of four documents for us to review and sign, as follow:
- Lease Agreement
- Countersigned IMFPA
- Invoice for Payment of Bank Transmission & Administrative Fees
- Irrevocable Corporate Refund Undertaking (ICRU)
As soon as we receive the contract, we sent the full set of contract to our Compliance Team to conduct due diligence.
P/s: The above signed documents are available for access by registered members.
2.2 Due Diligence
Our Compliance Team checked the authenticity of the following contents:
- Company (e.g. Certificate of Incorporation)
- Company Reprensentative – Mr. Carl Thomas Senior
- Email Domain Address
- Technical analysis (e.g. source of emails)
Here, we share our findings of the first three items above, as our Compliance Team has not provided the green light to share the details. While one reason for not sharing is because we want to preserve our proprietary knowledge, another reason is because we do not want Fraudsters to learn and find ways to outsmart us.
2.2.1 Company
The first content we usually verify is the company. We ensure that the company is registered and active.
2.2.1.1 UK Company House
From UK Company House, we confirmed the Provider in the contract, Barley Investments Ltd or now known as Barclays (Barley) Ltd was active and the address in the contract matched with the registered address.
2.2.1.2 Certificate of Incorporation
We checked the copy of the certification of incorporation and confirmed that the copy in the contract was not fake.
2.2.1.3 Company Address
From Google Map, we confirmed the address was valid.
2.2.2 Director – Carl Thomas Senior
Usually, the first content we check was to ensure that we were communicating with a genuine representative.
The contract we received stated the representative was Mr. Carl Thomas Senior.
2.2.2.1 UK Company House
From UK Company House, we confirmed that Carl Thomas Senior was an active director of the Provider in the contract, Barley Investments Ltd or now known as Barclays (Barley) Ltd.
P/s: From the search in Company House dated on June 23rd, 2017, we noticed that Carl Thomas Senior had 45 appointments in companies registered at the same address, 1 Churchill Place, London, England, E14 5HP.
2.2.2.2 Passport Copy
As shared in our Due Diligence Tips, we check the authenticity of the passport provided in the Lease Agreement, as shown on the right.
Special Note:
Note that the above passport and certificate of incorporation were used by a fraudster agent, Lee Hack Hyung, who may have taught that the documents were authentic.
2.2.3 Company Domain
We were delighted when we found that the domain (barleyinvestments.co.uk) of the email addresses we exchange with Provider’s representatives was registered to the same office address stated in the Company House, which is Barclays Bank’s Headoffice in London.
2.3 Payment
Having received clearance from the Compliance Team, we were ready to proceed to execute the contract.
2.3.1 Clarification on Different Payment Bank Account
However, when we noticed the bank account to receive the bank transmission and administration fee belonged to another company in a bank in Malaysia, we questioned Carl Thomas Senior at the email address info@barleyinvestments.co.uk. Refer to the email communications on the right.
Our management decided to accept the explanation as we were keen to find a “genuine” provider that can offer collateral transfer from top rating banks’ instruments (mainly BG or SBLC).
2.3.2 Remittance to Nominated Account
Our management decided to accept the explanation as we were keen to find a “genuine” provider that can offer collateral transfer from top rating banks’ instruments (mainly BG or SBLC).
On Feb 2nd 2016, we remitted US$35k ($35,000.00) to Nano World Express Enterprise in Maybank, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
2.4 Additional Payment Required
The very next day, after confirming the receipt of our payment of US$35k, Carl Thomas Senior started to give some excuses about his over-sight of additional payment. He required us to pay additional US$30k before he can send SWIFT MT799.
Without the additional payment, he would have to cancel the deal and refund us the payment we sent earlier.
We tried to negotiate that it was against our agreement to ask for additional payment. We would not mind paying the extra if it was in the contract in the first place. We promised to agree to pay higher in the second contract, which we had earlier submitted.
We also tried to include the discussion with Kumar (KS), who was supposed to be the Provider’s Mandate.
In the end, we confirmed our discussion to cancel the deal and demanded the refund of our first payment.
From then onwards, Carl Thomas Senior was not contactable via phone or email. Kumar was still contactable but he was always giving excuses.
Special Notes:
(i) We made a police report in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The local police directed us to a police station, and we made our report to one police officer in his office. However, the police report he wrote was in Malay language, which we do not understand. We signed on the report but the police officer did not give us a copy. Up to now, we did not receive any feedback from the Malaysia Police. We hope the Police did not use our report to bribe the company. Maybe it is time for us to find out what happened to our report made in 2016 since the country is under a new and “cleaner” government.
(ii) We came across another fraudulent provider who had directed payment to Nano World Express Ltd. While we do not have the resources to investigate this company, we highly suspect this company is linked to a world-wide fraudulent or scam.
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Fax: (65) 6749 5891
Email: general@efesea.com
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