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Bogus ARNUK in Recovery Room Scam
Steve Conley • Jul 10, 2019
Scammers cloned our identity to rob victims from an earlier scam
The identity of Asset Recovery Network UK was recently cloned and used in a "recovery room scam".
A group of people claiming to be ARNUK came in after a major scam had been exposed and they pretended to be able to recover some or all of a person’s investment. The truth is that this was part of a follow-up scam
and its sole aim was to trick investors into paying more money.
Recovery room scams tend to focus on persuading investors that their worthless investment had suddenly become a desirable asset and they have found a serious buyer who wants to buy the investment. There is never a buyer for the investment.
The investor is sold a story about this mysterious buyer wanting to pay top dollar for the investment but there is just one problem. Before he can complete on the purchase, he needs the investor to pay
either the sales commission or the due diligence fees or the tax bill or the admin bill or the legal bill or the platform listing bill or anything else they can think up.
Quite often the investor is asked for a small sum at first, which he/she is happy to pay. Then they are asked to pay another sum and then another sum and then another sum and so on. Once the investor pays the first sum they are on the hook
and keep paying because they don’t want to lose what they’ve paid. The reality is that they lost it the moment they paid over the money.
Each time the payment keeps increasing with larger and larger sums being asked for.
With a scam similar to the bogus ARNUK scam, one victim invested £30,000 in a scam investment. He was approached by a recovery room scam in which the company told him they had a buyer. He would only have to pay £700. He paid them. By the time he made contact with us he had paid over £28,000 to the recovery room scam. They were now asking for £14,000 for the next instalment stating that if he didn’t pay, he would lose the money he had already paid. Fortunately, the investigator stopped him making that £14,000 payment but the investigator was too late to stop the £28,000.
Other recovery room scammers known to us include:
- Cordell Groves
- Phipps Clarke Grainger
- PV-Merge
- Barola Asset Management, and
- NLC Partners.
The bogus Asset Recovery Network UK
had an unusual twist on the recovery room scam model. They pretended to be Insolvency Practitioners i.e. the liquidators of the scam investment company.
The original scam company pretended to have placed itself in liquidation and to have appointed the bogus Asset Recovery Network UK to handle the liquidation. The bogus ARNUK would apparently sell all the assets of the scam company (which are normally a big fat zero) and pay out the proceeds to investors.
The bogus Asset Recovery Network UK was apparently able to turn worthless assets into solid gold!
According to the bogus ARNUK, they would be able to sell the assets and pay everyone back with a huge profit. There is just one problem … investors would have to pay something upfront first. It doesn’t matter what reason they give you for needing your money – IT IS A SCAM.
If you pay scammers them you will never see your money again.
The genuine Asset Recovery (UK) Limited, registered in England and Wales at Companies House registration number 10963590 with HQ in North Yorkshire - reported this Recovery Room Scam to the Police on Thursday 21st March 2019:
Incident reference number NYP210320190495
Email to send further info to is general.enquiries@northyorkshire.co.pnn.police.uk
The people behind the bogus ARNUK even cloned the identity of ARNUK’s CEO, Steve Conley.
Here is a photo of the FAKE passport - of the BOGUS STEVE CONLEY!!!
If you recognise this man please report him to the police on the contact details above, quoting the incident number.
We have so far identified over 50 victims of the bogus ARNUK scam. Losses totalling £250,000.
Investigating officers have managed to freeze many of the scammers bank accounts that were opened by money mules across the UK. They have also taken the original scam companies to court which resulted in the appointment of an Insolvency Practitioner to further investigate these incidents.
It was purely by chance that the private investigator on the case happened to know our CEO, in person when the bogus Steve Conley was mentioned by a victim and the passport was produced.
The private investigator’s take on the situation is as follows:
“One of our clients has a winding up petition in the High Court on Weds 27th March against the scam digital currency company - Clear View Marketing Services Ltd. We expect him to get a winding up order.
This will then pass to the Official Receiver. We have a private firm, which we work with on liquidations and they will apply to have this case.
The bogus ARN and another bogus company are contacting investors telling them that the company is already in liquidation (which it isn't) and are saying that they have sold their digital currencies and are sitting on a pile of money for them if they could just pay the release fee which is typically several thousand pounds. These companies have the email addresses, logos etc of CVMS so there has been obvious collusion.
We have the details of 30 UK bank accounts investors have paid money into in relation to the original CVMS scam and the follow-up scam. Our liquidator intends to force the banks to provide the details of the owners of those accounts and details of the transactions. A liquidator has similar if not stronger powers than the Police in some cases. One of the bogus ARN accounts has been frozen and they are pushing our client to tell his bank to release it. This suggests that there is some money still in the account.
Happy to help the Police enquiry if they are serious about investigating the bogus ARN. We can link the Police up with several investors who have been approached by them. There are two officers in two different police authorities who have contacted our investors over the past 6 months and are looking into this kind of recovery room scam. We get the impression that it just needs one authority to take the lead and co-ordinate because we have information which could help them. The sums involved are significant and I believe the same people are behind almost all of the recovery room scams.”
Then a victim reported an incident to our HQ in York.
On 15th June 2019, another victim of the bogus ARNUK wrote to our headquarters in York, obtained from Companies House. He mentioned the names Samuel and Paul Davies.
The victim said that around the middle of March 2019 he began to get phone calls and emails from a £250,000 investment he had made in a BINARY OPTIONS company called ISGXCHANGE, money that disappeared.
The scammers then falsely claimed that they were working with Asset Recovery Network (UK) Limited (they weren’t).
The victim thought that they were genuine as they had all his correspondences with ISGXCHANGE
(which they would as they were very likely the same people). Then they even said that they did not want any money in advance (clearly a tactic to gain trust).
Later on they said although ISGXCHANGE
had gone into liquidation. He could not get any monies refunded as he would have to pay back the bonuses, he had received from ISGXCHANGE.
(Note these would not have been profits – you understand? These pyramid schemes simply pay part of receipts from monies received from new scam victims to make it seem like bonuses so that they can avoid suspicion for as long as possible. Then suddenly when their work is done, they disappear!)
They told the victim that they discussed the refund of bonuses with a company called CYSEC, who they claimed were holding the ISGXCHANGE funds. CYSEC
had replied to the scammers (apparently) and told the victim that if he made a deposit of £12,000, then he could withdraw £120,000 (this was another lie).
Once the victim agreed, Paul Davies
requested that the victim sent the £12,000 to MGS LIMITED, which was an escrow company they purported to be using to deal with the matter. The victim did this through a bank transfer.
After this had gone through, Paul Davies
said that he needed another £9,600 to be able to release the refund and send the money in pounds sterling to the victim’s account. Paul Davies
told the victim it would take 32 to 33 weeks to get the refund of the money (stalling for time before the matter was reported).
When the victim managed to raise the £9,600 at the end of May 2019 (clearly this was the last of the victim’s life savings), he tried to contact Paul Davies
by phone and email – the same number and email address he had used to communicate with him earlier. There was no answer and the victim’s emails kept bouncing.
That’s when he brought the matter to the attention of the genuine Asset Recovery Network (UK) Limited.
What must you do?
If you have been approached by anyone claiming to be from Asset Recovery Network UK Limited – that’s not what we do. The genuine Asset Recovery Network (UK) Limited does not deal directly with members of the public.
Our clients are foreign banks who have had money stolen or contracts breached.
If you have been a victim of the bogus ARNUK scam
or any other scam, here’s what you should do.
In the first instance, report the matter to Action Fraud AND to your local Police authority
via their websites.
Action Fraud can be contacted here: www.actionfraud.police.uk
It is highly unlikely that the scammers, or the investments they sold, were regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority or covered under the jurisdiction of the Financial Ombudsman’s Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Here are two private investigators
that we know and trust that you should contact to pursue asset recovery. Please mention our company, the genuine Asset Recovery Network (UK) Limited, to ensure you receive the best possible service:
Safe or Scam www.safeorscam.net
Carlton Huxley Ltd www.carltonhuxley.co.uk
Should you have any questions for the genuine ARNUK, or wish to contact us for any reason our email address is:
info@assetrecoverynetwork.co.uk
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