You probably wondered why there wasn’t any article on biodieselfever.com recently. Well, we’re all tied up in a photobioreactor consultancy project in China. We cannot disclose it’s location and you won’t find anything on the internet, not via the chinese Google search engine and not in any chinese online newspaper. But it’s there, honestly.
Anyway, this is not about algae, it’s about another scam. Imagine yourself at work in a nice office in The Netherlands, Spain or Portugal trying to ward off the usual whining customers who paid money but never received equipment when suddenly the phone rings. “Hi it’s Kevin Lopez from Equiasiagroup in Japan. We are a leading investment broker and we would like to send you some information to review”. Uh uh ok you say and you hang up. Then you get a link to a website: General Electric (wtf). A day or so later some other bloke by the name of Anthony Scott (Kevin’s boss) calls and suggest that you buy stocks. GE is not hot anymore, Novartis (beware, pharma) is now. You have some money left from the millions you made in 2007, just before the terrible crisis, the bankruptcies, the hideaway and the escape routes became fashionable, so why not give it to this perfect stranger?
Then suddenly you see a flash and smoke, and there’s Avi, our conpsiracy specialist in his spandex superman outfit witha big warning sign that reads: “STOP”.
Why?
Well, Anthony Scott ‘is no longer’ with Equiasiagroup. He now works for Aiken & Edgefield, who are listed on the Japenex energy exchange. The only problem is that the companies, despite their shiny websites, do not exist. They are fake. Baloney. The artwork on the broker’s website is similar and the real time stocks on the Japenex site are from a free server.
Nothing wrong with funny websites and aliases, but we draw the line when people are after your money while having nothing to offer in return. Algae photobioreactor salesmen, boiler room scammers, Portugese biodiesel equipment suppliers who use pictures from a bankrupt company and so on.
So who is behind all this? Well, a guy called Alek Tan from the Phillippines. He used to support people on newsgroups, now he uses all his technology skills to steal other people’s money. You can reach Alek Tan at metnik1981@yahoo.com
Update: We’ve got a new boiler room scam: http://www.inactrading.com/- scumbags almost looking legit by hiring a virtual office in the Shanghai Kerry Centre.
Update: Several links have been taken down, but you are welcome to visit Google’s cache.