Expats warned over boiler room scammers

Over the past decade or so, expats across the world have been warned time and time again about crooks posing as financial advisors, but boiler room scammers are the worst of the entire poisonous pack.

Often operating from back-street rooms in the capital cities of many favourite expat locations, unqualified, briefly-trained and often without legal visas, these crooks are experts in just one thing –
separating their victims from their hard-earned wages, capital and pensions. Financially unsophisticated expatriates fall for their scripts and lose everything on a regular basis, whilst the scammers shut up shop and move to another location to avoid detection.

Sadly, the majority get away with it, but occasionally the gang makes a mistake and ends up in court. Two such criminal prosecutions by the FCA held recently in London resulted in two boiler room gangs getting their just deserts, and ongoing confiscation of assets proceedings will hopefully result in those robbed getting at least some of their money back.

The first case involved the selling of shares in an unauthorised, fake healthcare company said to be expanding across Dubai and guaranteed to make huge profits for investors. Over 300 investors were persuaded via cold-calling to part with their cash and were issued shares in Symbiosis Healthcare PLC through a sophisticated set-up involving brokers and corporate advisors. The scam garnered 1.4 million pounds from unwary investors, with the court finding they were deliberately misled. The prosecution was brought by HMRC as part of its drive to identify and bring to justice all who set up and operate similar scams.

A second case involved six boiler room operators who’d garnered £2.7 million from a series of separate scams, again using cold-calling to trap their victims into parting with their money. All six were found guilty, but details and the names of those convicted weren’t able to be released as two of the scammers are due in court to face more accusations at a later date. According to the reporting restriction, charges included fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, false representation and perverting the course of justice.

Expats, especially retirees and high earners, are being warned not to consider any investment which seems too good to be true as regards returns, but boiler rooms continue to flourish in expat hubs. Asia is a favourite with financial scammers due to its high numbers of expat retirees with generous pensions, with some countries’ corruption acting against victims and whistle-blowers.

In one country, a British expat blogger did his best for years to identify and shame several powerful boiler rooms as well as other property and financial scams, until he was forced back to the UK by threats on his life. Recently, his website was closed down via requests from the scammers themselves to the site’s hosting platform.