Boiler rooms | REDD-Monitor

Yesterday (23 November 2016), the UK chancellor gave his Autumn budget statement. Last week, there were several media reports that the chancellor was going to ban cold calls about pensions. But Chancellor Philip Hammond didn’t mention the word “ban”. In his speech, which lasted just over 50 minutes, he devoted all of seven seconds to cold […]

Earlier this week two men were jailed for their role in London-based scam companies that sold carbon credits as investments. Michale Foran and Kallan Henry were jailed for four-and-a-half years and one-and-a-half years respectively. Foran and Henry were convicted of conspiracy to defraud. Migle Sasyte was also found guilty and will be sentenced in January […]

A company called EcoPlanet Bamboo (UK) Ltd launched a “bamboo bond” in 2011. Investors were encouraged to hand over their money, which would be used to establish bamboo plantation in Nicaragua. Camille Rebelo, one of the co-founders of EcoPlanet Bamboo, claimed that an investment of US$50,000 would see a return of 500% over 15 years. […]

On 15 November 2016, Dutch journalist Okke Ornstein was arrested when he arrived at Tocumen International Airport in Panama. Monte Friesner, a Canadian who lives in Panama, filed a complaint about what Ornstein had written on his website about Friesner’s business practices. In Panama, defamation is a criminal offence. In December 2012, Ornstein was convicted […]

The EcoPlanet Bamboo story took a strange turn last week when EcoPlanet Bamboo responded to the posts on REDD-Monitor about the company’s investment scheme in “bamboo bonds”. First we’ll look at the story so far, followed by EcoPlanet Bamboo’s ad hominem response. I’ve written three posts about EcoPlanet Bamboo. The company runs bamboo plantations in […]

Between 2 May 2011 and 24 October 2012 a London-based company called MH Carbon sold more than four million carbon credits to members of the public as investments. The carbon credits were worthless and investors lost their money. The company took at least £14.3 million from retail investors. In December 2016, Gavin Manerowski, director of […]

EcoPlanet Bamboo runs bamboo plantations in Nicaragua, South Africa and Ghana. A UK company called EcoPlanet Bamboo (UK) Ltd sold “bamboo bonds” with a promise of “a 500% return on investment over a 15 year period” on an investment of US$50,000. But in December 2015, EcoPlanet Bamboo wrote to bondholders to tell them that their […]

Renwick Haddow is back. The man who ran the Capital Alternatives network of companies is a “key figure” behind a New York co-working startup called Bar Works, according to an article on The Real Deal website. Bar Works leases or buys retail spaces and converts them to co-working spaces. Customers can hire a desk in […]

A British man, Mohsin Usmangani Salya, has been sentenced to three years and three months in jail. Carbon Pulse reports that a court in Germany found Salya guilty of carbon credit VAT fraud. In April 2016, the German police issued a call for information about three carbon credit fraud suspects. The men were wanted in Germany for […]

Property Frontiers is an Oxford-based investment firm. According to the company’s website, Property Frontiers is “an investment company with a reputation for offering the best-performing international property and alternative investments to both first time and experienced investors”. One of the alternative investments that Property Frontiers promoted was EcoPlanet Bamboo’s plantations in Nicaragua. Property Frontiers told […]

On 5 December 2016, the UK government launched a consultation on pension scams. The government is asking for responses to four proposals aimed at making it harder for boiler room operations to scam people out of their pensions. The deadline for responses is midnight, 13 February 2017. Click on the image to go to the […]

A couple of weeks ago, a REDD-Monitor reader sent me an email. I’ll call him Jack. “Have you seen the website alternative-investing.uk?” Jack asked. “I think it could be a scam site given the track record of these types of things.” I asked Jack if he’d been cold called. “I had been surfing around, I […]

Two days ago, I wrote about a company called Heron Global Partners. Between January and October 2016, the company raised £10.8 million in “investments”. It did so, not by cold calling, but using “inbound marketing”. Yesterday, REDD-Monitor received a response from Richard Wood,director of Six and Flow, the firm hired by Heron Global Partners’ to […]

The Eco Resources Fund was launched in July 2012 in the Isle of Man. Via a special purpose vehicle called ERF Limited, the Fund invested in bamboo plantations in Nicaragua and South Africa. The bamboo plantations are run by EcoPlanet Bamboo. Back in 2012, a company called EcoPlanet Bamboo (UK) Ltd sold “bamboo bonds” to […]

On 27 April 2016, REDD-Monitor wrote about three carbon credit fraud suspects who were wanted in Germany for tax evasion and money laundering. Two of the men, Ashraf Muhammad and Mobeen Iqbal, are from Pakistan and the third, Mohsin Salya, is British. Three weeks later, I received an email from Aadiel Salya, a solicitor in […]

At the beginning of December 2015, Troy Wiseman was in Paris. The CEO and co-founder of EcoPlanet Bamboo was there as part of the Nicaraguan government delegation to COP 21, the UN climate change negotiations. Wiseman’s Paris trip came just a few days before Wiseman wrote to the people unfortunate enough to have invested in […]

Bradlodge Limited was a recovery room scam. Back in 2014, the company’s conmen rang up people who had already been conned into buying worthless carbon credits as investments. Bradlodge told them they could sell their carbon credits. For an advanced fee, of course. Bradlodge Limited managed to rake in £804,451 – from people who had […]

Bar Works is a company that buys retail spaces, converts them and rents them out as co-working offices. Renwick Haddow, the man behind the Capital Alternatives network of scam companies is a “key figure” behind Bar Works, according to an article on The Real Deal website. Bar Works, meanwhile, claims that Haddow is just a […]

EcoPlanet Bamboo is a US-based company that has established bamboo plantations in Nicaragua, South Africa and Ghana. Here’s how the company describes itself on its website: EcoPlanet Bamboo is an innovative forestry company focused on integrated bamboo plantations and associated processing. We focus on the provision of a secure and certified source of fiber for […]

Bar Works is a US-based company apparently hoping to copy the success of WeWork in the co-working sector. But in January 2017, an article on the US property website The Real Deal, exposed the role of Renwick Haddow in Bar Works. Bar Works told Konrad Putzier, a journalist with The Real Deal, that Haddow was […]

Philip Hammond’s Autumn budget statement did not ban cold calls. But the government will hold a consultation before Christmas

Scammers behind London Carbon Credit Company jailed

EcoPlanet Bamboo’s Eco Resources Fund PCC to go into liquidation

Dutch journalist Okke Ornstein arrested for defamation in Panama. A backstory featuring Silva Tree, Sustainable Capital Group, Citadel/Highpoint Trustees, and Emerald Knight

Response from EcoPlanet Bamboo: Chris Lang is a “pseudo ‘writer’ and ex conman”

Gavin Manerowski, ex-director of carbon credit investment scam company MH Carbon, is banned as director for 12 years

Premier Group (Isle of Man) Ltd goes into liquidation. Inspector appointed to investigate Eco Resource Fund. What next for Troy Wiseman and EcoPlanet Bamboo?

Bar Works: The return of Renwick Haddow

Mohsin Salya is no longer wanted by the German authorities. Peter Singh Virdee, alias “Batman”, faces extradition to Germany

“Returns up to 895%” and other misleading statements from Property Frontiers about investments in EcoPlanet Bamboo and Silva Tree

Deadline tomorrow: UK government consultation on pension scams

Alternative Investing with Heron Global Partners and Renwick Haddow: Inbound marketing is the new cold calling

Response from Richard Wood, Director of Six and Flow, about Heron Global Partners: “We appreciate that the line highlighted is potentially misleading”

An update on EcoPlanet Bamboo, Eco Resources Fund, and Premier Group (Isle of Man) Ltd: “Substantial recovery of value from the plantations may be unlikely”

Mohsin Salya has been jailed. Aadiel Salya faces jail for fraud

Troy Wiseman of EcoPlanet Bamboo caught lying in late 2015: “We did an institutional debt deal with a Wall Street fund”

Lukasz Matula, director of recovery room Bradlodge Limited, banned for 15 years

“Bar Works has been facing difficulties with its banking facilities”, Managing Director Franklin Kinard tells investors

Eco Planet Bamboo’s investors were “significantly let down”

Renwick Haddow is Chief Executive Officer of Bar Works Inc. That’s bad news for investors