IFW Global has received complaints from concerned investors about losing their funds to a scam syndicate called ‘i21Co Ltd Financial Services & i21 Company Limited.’

IFW Global has determined that this ongoing scam syndicate has cloned the genuine company ‘Investment 21 Company Limited’ which has been registered in Hong Kong since April of 1981 and is portraying that they have offices located in Hong Kong and Zurich. The scam syndicate have cloned the genuine Hong Kong company registration CR 0096104 on their documentation and social media accounts.

Boiler Room scam

These types of investment frauds are commonly known as “boiler room” investment scams and are usually carried out by professional con artists, confident tricksters, and fraudsters who use fake names and mask their real locations and identities, whilst purporting to be hotshot brokers for a premium investment firms, usually based somewhere in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe.

The money paid by the investor is never traded or invested. The funds are immediately stolen and laundered through “laundering agents” and “bankers” who take a commission for moving the money around the world, ultimately ending up either in cash, luxury assets, or in the personal accounts of the fraud masterminds.

The boiler room fraud industry is successful because of the international cross-border nature of this type of investment fraud. Many of the groups and suspects involved in this fraudulent activity are based in Southeast Asia but other boiler room operations have been uncovered in Spain, Cyprus, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Serbia, South Africa, and Israel.

Next steps

If you have been targeted by the “i21 Co Ltd Financial Services and/or i21 Company Limited” scam, it’s important to follow the below steps immediately:

• Do not invest any more money. Any request for payment of a “tax” or “fee” is their last ditch attempt to get more money from you.
• Immediately report your fraud to the Police or via your national fraud reporting portal (for example: Australia – www.cyber.gov.au, USA – www.ic3.gov, UK – www.actionfraud.police.uk, Canada – www.antifraudcentre.ca)
• Submit an Investment Fraud enquiry to IFW Global to discuss your fraud and find out what can be done to investigate and recover your stolen money.