Clients invested thousands in this Calgary organisation though there’s a join — it doesn’t exist

A organisation of South African investors contend they’re out hundreds of thousands of dollars after investing in what they believed was a Calgary association — that doesn’t seem to exist.

Mzondi Mathebula said he initial listened about Reannex Investments from a friend.

“I consider primarily we invested about $1,000 US. And we went on to deposit another $20,000 US,” he said. 

Initially, all was going good — tiny withdrawals worked, call Mathebula and others to invest larger sums.

But in Nov 2019, seven clients tell CBC News, withdrawals stopped operative and communications from a association mostly ceased.

“All a withdrawals are still tentative to date. We are still means to get into a complement and see a investment expansion … so we became skeptical, wondering what is unequivocally happening?” Mathebula said. 

He pronounced he invested $28,280 US and a Reannex website states he’s finished $29,981 US in profit. He’s been means to repel $6,745 US. But a rest of a income stays in his account.

“Because we are far, we can’t go and check in their offices … we don’t know what is happening.”

Another financier said she was told in a minute from a association that she and her investment organisation would have to lift their sum deposit to $1 million US before they could make any withdrawals. They had already invested some-more than $400,000 US, and had been told that $315,000 US in distinction is sitting in their account.

Another pronounced she was sent a minute saying a association is carrying withdrawal “challenges” due to a complement upgrade, though no date was set for when she would be means to repel her funds.

The Reannex Investments website states a association is located on a third building of a Lancore Building, on 10th Street and 10th Avenue in southwest Calgary. 

It’s not.

That building is indeed home to Alberta Supports (government-provided village services) and staff there pronounced they have never listened of Reannex and, to their knowledge, it has never been located in a building. A orator reliable Alberta Supports has been leasing space on a third building given 1991.

The Reannex website lists a second plcae on 125 High St. in Boston, Mass. That building’s skill government association also reliable Reannex is not a tenant.

The company’s phone numbers — with Calgary and Boston area codes — are away and emails sent to some association addresses bounce back. CBC News has reached out to a association mixed times over a series of weeks and did not accept a response in time for publication.

“It looks so genuine … we found it legit from my side, given it did compensate me,” another client, Ivan Seroka, said. “I don’t have anyone to go travel into a bureau and check them, given a craft from this side is about $1,000 US … that would be a final resort.”

$1,000 in bitcoin

CBC News combined an criticism underneath a feign name in an try to make a tiny investment with the hope of contacting a association or contrast a withdrawal system.

The criticism was combined though Reannex would usually accept deposits larger than $1,000 US in bitcoin.

When CBC News, posing as this intensity investor, emailed a association to ask information about how to make a smaller investment on a hearing basis, those inquiries went unanswered. 

The company’s website promises weekly or monthly earnings trimming from 10 per cent to 65 per cent on investments. 

It’s unequivocally easy for [scammers] to costume who they are, costume where they are.– Alison Trollope, Alberta Securities Commission

The infancy of testimonials on a website seem to be feign — with no amicable media accounts tied to the names or photos.

One commemorative claims to be from a male named Kolowich Milosevic though his print belongs to motivational orator Bob Proctor. A orator for Proctor told CBC News that Proctor had not certified a association to use his photo. 

CBC News reached one lady in South Africa whose name and print compare those used in her commemorative on a website.

Nomcebo Dlamini manages a Reannex Investment page on Facebook — she pronounced she primarily found a association by a Facebook hunt looking for new business opportunities. She pronounced she’s usually an financier with no ties to a association and was regulating her Facebook page to partisan others, as Reannex pronounced it charity bonuses like homes and cars to those who brought in vast investments from new clients.

She pronounced she invested, and assured others to invest, after an familiarity in Calgary visited a company’s bureau and told her a bureau does exist — though she refused to yield that person’s name to CBC News.

“I don’t have anything that we can assistance we with given I’m also frustrated,” she pronounced in a phone interview.

On her Facebook page, she frequently posted screenshots of withdrawals from her criticism to denote she was creation income from her Reannex investments, as good as photos from Reannex events in Durban, South Africa. She pronounced she now believes she was scammed by a company.

Other investors reliable they had attended investment events in South Africa, and communicated with an investment manager named Nicholas Paul by WhatsApp who they believed was located in Calgary.

That Calgary series was away — but Paul’s WhatsApp criticism tied to a series is still active. CBC News reached out to him around a messaging app but, while a summary has been noted as “seen” and Paul has given been online, he did not respond. Paul’s print shows a man, who appears to be in his 30s, posing in front of pop-up cosmetic igloos and Christmas lights.

Messages from Paul sent to clients uncover him clearly placating them in Nov about withdrawals not being available. 

“Please we know how we feel and clients reactions … There’s series of withdrawal that needs to be finished per day so that bitcoin network can endorse it and we can’t surpass this series of transaction,” one summary from Paul reads.

CEO ‘Sharlok Homes’

The staff listed on a association website also don’t seem to exist. Searches of staff members’ names like “chief executive officer Sharlok Homes” spin adult no results. Homes’ print is a batch photo.

The autobiography for a company’s handling executive Hiamovi Clifford states he was innate in Colorado on Nov. 15, 1959, and attended a University of Salford. There are no birth annals in Colorado for anyone with that name. The University of Salford said it does not yield information about possibly someone attended a school.

Clifford’s bio also claims he founded a Reannex Foundation, that “donated $10 millions for inundate victims of Houston Texas.” CBC News has found no annals to infer that gift exists or finished that donation. 

Managing partner Barrie Christine’s autobiography says she sits on a Woolf Institute growth legislature during a University of Cambridge (the Woolf Institute pronounced it had no chairman of that name or any movement on a council) and volunteers as a keeper with a Patient Access Network Foundation (which said it does not have trustees). 

While Reannex is not purebred as a business in Canada or Massachusetts, it does have a business registration series in London, U.K., under director Matthew Davidson. CBC News has not been means to hit Davidson. 

Reannex altered a name final year from Nadex Investments, according to letters from association investors supposing to CBC News. 

Nadex is also purebred as a association in a U.K. — though in Jan it was given notice that unless it files overdue paperwork, it will be dissolved.

In late January, South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority released a warning about Nadex, saying a association is not certified to give financial recommendation or describe services. The group pronounced South African business should call a FSCA at 0800 110 443 before creation an investment to endorse a association is authorized. 

CBC News reached out to London military to ask if Reannex is underneath review though officials pronounced they were incompetent to endorse an review though possibly a date and plcae of an offence, or a military news number. CBC also reached out to South Africa police and has nonetheless to accept a response.

RCMP pronounced as a association is purportedly located in Calgary, any review would tumble underneath internal military jurisdiction. 

Promises of high rates of lapse with reduce risk … it’s a representation in 99 per cent of all scams.– Alison Trollope, Alberta Securities Commission.

Calgary military pronounced they were not means to criticism on possibly a association is underneath review — though pronounced they might not get concerned in an review of a association that is purebred in Calgary though isn’t indeed formed in a city, unless there is proven vigilant a association was purebred for a purpose of defrauding customers. There might be non-criminal reasons since a association might list a plcae in one office while handling in another, military said.

“I don’t know what to do,” Mathebula said. He pronounced now one of his children will not be means to attend university given he can’t get his income behind from Reannex. 

Another client, who asked not to be named as she pronounced she is still anticipating to contend certain ties with a association and replenish her investment, pronounced she took out bank loans to deposit that she can't means to compensate back.

Alison Trollope, executive of communications and financier preparation with a Alberta Securities Commission, pronounced a elect might not have office to examine a association that represents itself as formed in Canada though has no tangible ties to a country. But it would positively co-operate with ubiquitous authorities’ investigations if needed, she said. 

‘Scammers know no borders’

“Enforcement knows no borders anymore given scammers know no borders and, with all a record that exists today, it’s unequivocally easy for them to costume who they are, costume where they are and try to pretence people into handing over their money,” she said.

She does have some recommendation for investors to equivocate being ripped off.

“For Canadians and for people internationally where they are investing in places that they’re not informed with, we mean, there’s a integrate of red flags there. First is that you’re promulgation a income offshore … it’s roughly unfit for a internal authorities to lane it down and assistance we get your income back,” she said.

“The other thing people unequivocally need to be wakeful of are some of a other red flags of fraud, like promises of high rates of lapse with reduce risk … it’s a representation in 99 per cent of all scams.”

She also pronounced while a association might seem to be from Canada — contend by carrying a Canadian area formula — that might not be a box as those details are easy to spoof.

“While it would seem to have an component of being from Canada, that’s not indispensably a case. But in terms of safeguarding yourself in Canada, we can check a registration of anyone charity an investment,” Trollope said. 

Bitcoin a complicating factor

The rand — South Africa’s currency — is one of a world’s many volatile, creation cryptocurrency or investments that seem to be in Canadian or U.S. dollars significantly some-more appealing, clients said.

Cryptocurrency also has singular law in South Africa, nonetheless a nation skeleton to deliver stricter manners this year.

Benjamin Perrin, a Calgary cryptocurrency expert, said the conditions these investors find themselves in is especially unfortunate given for some, cryptocurrencies can be an appealing or even safer choice than their internal currency.

He forked to Venezuela, where bitcoin has turn intensely renouned as a bolivar contends with harmful hyperinflation.

“The whole indicate of bitcoin is disintermediation — holding out middlemen,” he said. “But as shortly as we put that trust behind in somebody again,” like an capricious investment, he said, “you’re kind of negating a whole purpose of bitcoin in a initial place.”

Perrin pronounced it’s a red dwindle when a association like Reannex requests transactions in bitcoin notwithstanding purportedly gripping a land in U.S. dollars — given a income transfers are irrevocable and radically untraceable. 

“Criminals gain on people’s disagreement of [technology] in sequence to make a discerning buck,” he said. “People are used to being kind of babysat with a stream banking infrastructure … we consider a usually approach around this is education. 

“In general, if somebody is earnest we any arrange of [guaranteed] lapse on any investment, we would be impossibly wary.”

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/reannex-investments-1.5436547?cmp=rss