A private investigator says his client was scammed of nearly 400,000 USD by a person claiming to be a Citizenship by Investment agent from Antigua and Barbuda. CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR WHATS APP GROUP FOR MORE UPDATES
Robert Smith says his client has contacted the 35 licensed agents provided by the official CIP website: https://cip.gov.ag/how-to-apply/licensed-agents/ to get information about the citizenship program.
He says his client asked the 35 agents if there was a possibility to pay for the citizenship in cryptocurrencies.
Smith says many of the agents said no but then his client later received a message from a personal email address which resembled that of one of the official CIP agents listed.
He says his client was not suspicious about the email since it contained the first name of one of the actual agents and since the conversion appeared to flow from an earlier conversation he had with a law firm/agent.
Smith says despite similarity in name he has no information that the law firm is linked to the fake agent “but we are investigating this detail.”
“The strategy was to invest into a Biorefinery company of Antigua and Barbuda the law firm, paying in Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) the law firm and in exchange Mr. (redacted) would join an affidavit to the application to confirm my client had enough resources to proceed for citizenship to the CIP unit. He assured my client that he already did that in the past and the probability of success was high to get the citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda.
A first set of payments was sent from August 19th 2021 to Mr. (redacted) for a total of 150,000 USD to this BTC address:
Following the payments, Mr (redacted) sent the AB1, AB2, AB3, AB4, AB5 and the L form to my client.
NOTE THAT THESE DOCUMENTS ARE NOT ACCESSIBLE FOR THE PUBLIC AND MUST BE PROVIDED BY A LICENSED AGENT FROM ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA ONLY
Mr. ( redacted) helped my client to fill the documents and after gathering all the justificatives, my client sent the documents by UPS on October 4th 2021 to Mr ( redacted) at this exact address:
(redacted) St John’s Antigua and Barbuda
The address was confirmed correct by (redacted) and corresponds to the address of the law firm ( redacted)
On April 6th 2022, ( redacted) has contacted my client for missing documents and pretending the CIP rules have changed for people paying in an alternative way than bank transfer. The email from CIP GOV AG case APP-11-21-4298 that Mr. ( redacted) received, was forwarded to my client to explain this change.
The total to invest was a minimum of 350,000 USD. At this stage, my client had already paid 150,000 USD the first time so my client sent on April 2022 the second set of payments (as required by Mr. John) for a total of 250,000 USD (50,000 USD more than required) to these two ETH addresses:
0x6dddda832af7b7a18d0a1ec7b795a2123184fa16
0x04e0173f6f2e3790edbcac53a3722f3a8041e80a
Mr. ( redacted) confirmed he received the payments.
The last missing documents were sent by my client on April 15th 2022, at the same address, without informing Mr. ( redacted). Mr. (redacted) confirmed to have received the last documents at the exact date of reception provided by UPS to my client.
Since the last payment provided by my client, Mr. (redacted) has never answered the messages sent by my client.
My client has tried to contact, by different email addresses, Mr. ( redacted), Mr. ( redacted), Mrs. ( redacted), and Mr. ( redacted) (all members of ( redacted) but without any answer from them.”
Monday 18th of this month, my client decided to call the law firm ( redacted) at this phone number: to ask for Mr. ( redacted)
By phone, Mr. ( redacted) identified himself and said to never had any contact with my client except for the first few messages sent by my client one year ago. Mr. ( redacted) explained to have never received any payment from my client and denied the address ( redacted) to be his email address.
At this stage, there is no evidence that Mr. ( redacted) from ( redacted) is the Mr. ( redacted) of ( redacted)
An investigation is under process to determine the real identity of ( redacted), linked with the ETH addresses sent to my client for the payments.
By analyzing the ETH block-chain we have noticed that 70 days ago, Mr. ( redacted) has transferred all the ETH from one of his wallet (0x04e0173f6f2e3790edbcac53a3722f3a8041e80a) to the Huobi marketplace. Huobi requires a strict KYC (Know Your Customer) to open an account. The police with a warrant would be able to ask the market exchange for the real identity of ( redacted)
The email address ( redacted) being a gmail address, a KYC is also required and the personal phone number of Mr. John might be known. Additionally, the signature on the UPS slip might give an additional proof of identity. CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR WHATS APP GROUP FOR MORE UPDATES
Request:
My client wishes to find his investment back and to reveal the identity of ( redacted) in order to stop his illegal activity.
I think, by contacting you, you also have a concern for the reputation of the CIP and for Antigua and Barbuda.
If you wish to collaborate or if you have any information concerning a similar case, I would be honored to gather the information in order to help the police to make their investigation (contact: [email protected]).
Robert Smith
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The European Union (EU) has long recognised that Citizenship by Investment was being regularly used by the criminal underworld and the super rich with questionable financial backgrounds; and they want to put a halt to it.
But guess who wants Antigua to continue with this ever growing fraudulent practice?
However, the critical thinkers already know who this person is …
And suppose all the CIP holders decides to come live Antigua 🇦🇬 as citizens rightly can???
If everything of importance is redacted, why publish the story?
You know fully well that the sensitive details are redacted to protect this entity. Why publish the story? Because it is in the public interest to know what is going on with one of the country’s major economic earner. And just to be clear only the name is redacted not withstanding the fact that the word “redacted” appears several times. But you already know this.
This article seems very farfetched, a typical scam and shake down attempt. Even the name Robert Smith is suspicious, very common and can be a rouse. One sided Brixtonian loves melee and political mud slinging. Not all complaints/articles are real and should be taken at face value. The block chain payments as Bitcoin is at an all time low and that sector is crashing is another cause for suspicion. There are too many turns and he says… to get an actual grasp that a crime was committed. Someone in Nigeria is having a good laugh at how gullible we (Antiguans) are too believe this scam is actually true. There are entities to investigate fraud if this story is true, or identify someone trying to get over a small country. Especially where the political climate is so daft, it allows people like naive Brixtonian to drink the cool aid.
It’s all about opinions and free speech @ Adjunct, I am entitled to mine as much as you are entitled to yours.
There’s no need to upset yourself because my viewpoint is dissimilar to you … 🤜🤛
This is a common scam. The local law firm’s email was hacked. The hacker made an email similar to the law firm. Then waited patiently after observing how the law firm corresponds with clients. It found the right client willing to do business by crypt which is harder to trace and exploited it. Law firm might want to change its passwords of create a new email account.
CIP is an Avenue for Criminals. I remembered a man was in Thailand. He was dealing on the dark web. When the Thai Police went to arrest him,he committed suicide. He was found with a CIP Passport of Antigua and Barbuda.Remember that matter of the Chinese Woman.She obtained her Citizenship by Buying A Passport of Antigua and Barbuda.The Chinese wanted her to be sent back to stand trial.Her Lawyers from a top Law Firm in Antigua objected to that. She is still living in Antigua.Then there is one Alex Saab Moran.He is in the lockup in the USA.The TAP DAWG once referred to him as his good friend.
Why pay in crypto unless you have something to hide? Sounds like a bad guy got scammed.
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