IBAN Wallet - hiding in Estonia?

The more info I get about IBAN Wallet the worse it looks. I visited 2 company locations in Riga, Latvia, and tried to reach them by phone. What did I find? Not much. But there is a different story with an Estonian company…

Latvian company

“Iban Wallet” means New Generation Market SIA, a business with company number 40203215233
Source: www.ibanwallet.com/en/terms

June, 2019:

Iban Wallet Corporation SIA was created:

• Paid capital: 1000 EUR

• Address: Rīga, Vējdzirnavu iela 28 - 13.

• Owner: Marc-Anthony Hurr

The same address “Rīga, Vējdzirnavu iela 28 - 13“ has been used to create 35 new companies. I visited it yesterday. Looks like a fintech hub, right?

My guess based on some documents I saw: Marc-Anthony Hurr paid baltic-legal.com for setting up a Latvian company, and they probably own or rent a flat in this residental building for setting up new companies.

February-March 2020:

Lot of changes were done in span of 1 month:

• New owner: Ahmad Maiwand Noorzai, born in 1990, a French individual with a passport from the Islamic State of Afghanistan. Is he a fall guy and maybe already went back to Afghanistan? An investor just like we saw in Envestio (Arkandi Ganzin)? A stolen identity? No idea. Possible LinkedIn profiles with matching name, but no mention of IBAN Wallet:

  1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmad-maiwand-noorzai-444607119/

  2. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmad-maiwand-noorzai-561b27100/

• New address: Rīga, Lāčplēša iela 87

• New company name: New Generation Market SIA

I visited new address as well. As I mentioned in previous post, there are 90 companies registered in this address, that have been moved here to “die“ - it is a graveyard for companies, who were shut down by State Revenue Service, Latvian company register or creditors.

But maybe this is a different case and a real, legitimate company? I checked:

Not possible to go inside without a code, and no mention of IBAN Wallet anywhere.

OK, then let’s try calling them. In Lursoft, which is a Latvian company database service, I found following number: +371 27836941 for New Generation Market SIA:

I tried to call it, but what a surprise - it does not exist.

In short - this looks like a dead end, an empty shell with no activity:

• A company owned by a guy from Afghanistan

• Registered in a shady address

• Not reachable in any way

• 0 EUR in revenue in 2019 according to latest financial report

• 0 employees in 2019 according to latest financial report

One of bloggers who advertised IBAN Wallet with many articles, asked them - what is going on? This was their response:

Good morning xxx.

Yes, we were aware of his article and we are working on that. Thanks for reaching us out.

So how are they “working on that“? They have not reached out to me, and have not explained anything, but they have flagged my review on their TrustPilot page:

TrustPilot in itself is a joke, they accept paid/fake reviews with no problem, but if company pays for their service, they allow to delete and hide critical reviews like mine. And the rating for IBAN Wallet? Great, of course:

TargetCircle - IBAN Wallet affiliate partner

I could not reach the Latvian company, so I decided to get in touch with their marketing partner - TargetCircle. It is an affiliate network that promotes IBAN Wallet to all the bloggers and other publishers, and the offer looks like this (still active today):

Based on text links it looks like IBAN Wallet have translated their site in many languages, these are probably their main markets:

What is interesting about their offer - very high fees: 5% + 10 EUR, so affiliate partners can get better return than investors.

Also notable that they allow promotion in 38 countries, including Estonia and Lithuania, but not Latvia. And including Ireland, but not United Kingdom. Why? Feels a bit shady and reminds of Grupeer that did not allow to invest from Latvia, but had their main office here.

I sent some questions to TargetCircle:

No reply so far, but Karlis, who worked for TargetCircle till July 2020, asked to wait:

But he shared some insight on why potential frauds are not removed as partners/advertisers from TargetCircle as fast as investors would like to:

So it is interesting that Target Circle advertises itself as “fraud scrubbed network“ from one side, but cannot remove a suspicious partner in a timely manner.

Also a good question - who is doing the fraud scrubbing on TargetCircle? Maybe they should hire someone else, because that person is not doing a very good job so far. Kuetzal, Envestio, Grupeer, Monethera, Wisefund, IBAN Wallet - all were promoted to TargetCircle publishers (bloggers etc.), and all are looking very suspicious. How many more cases like these are needed before TargetCircle starts doing some due dilligence on what kind of “investment“ platforms they promote?

I added their CEO in LinkedIn, so if he accepts me as a connection, will try to ask some questions. For example, one of the main questions from investors - will TargetCircle disclose, how much money they made from scam platforms? And will they return it to investors or they think that is OK to profit from that?

Estonian companies

I did not get a reply from TargetCircle, but while looking at their affiliate offer, I noticed that there was no reference to a Latvian company, but to an Estonian one:

• TECH CONSULTANCY MANAGEMENT PARTNERS OÜ

So I checked it out and it looks like we finally found at least 1 legal entity that has some turnover:

Key facts:

• Registered: 4th October, 2018

• Owner: Marc-Anthony Hurr, same guy who registered Latvian company

• Turnover in 2019: 12 866 095 EUR

• Turnover in 2020: 17 369 152 EUR

• 1 employee

So company with 1 employee doing 30 million EUR in revenue in 2019-2020. Not bad, right? And this is not the only Estonian company owned by Marc. In total there are 3, but other 2 seem to be inactive:

• TECH CONSULTANCY MANAGEMENT PARTNERS OÜ, reg nr. 14580113, created 04.10.2018

• International Security Trustee OÜ, reg. nr. 14740672, created 10.06.2019

• Iban Wallet Corporation OÜ, reg. nr. 14748328, created 21.06.2019

Here we also get to see some contacts:

• Phone: +44 7772137204 

• E-mail: marc@techconmgmtpartners.com, marchurr@gmail.com

Another email was mentioned “info@leapin.eu“ - but maybe that is from a service provider? Leapin.eu domain redirects to xolo.io

And I guess this website is also owned by Marc?

• techconmgmtpartners.com

Another thing owned by Marc? IBAN Wallet trademark.

What does it mean for investors?

The situation seems a bit strange:

• Investors have an agreement with an unreachable Latvian company, owned by a guy from Afghanistan, in a shady address, and no activity (at least in 2019).

• Publishers (bloggers) have an agreement with TargetCircle that is cooperating with an Estonian company.

So if there are any issues, then investors are fucked (Latvian company unreachable, has no assets or revenue), but publishers (bloggers) might have better luck - Estonian company has only 2500 EUR in share capital, but has done 30+ million EUR in turnover since 2019.

Also not clear, what happens to money that is deposited by investors? The account details for deposits right now are with a UK bank:

• IBAN: GB40LOYD30801286558082

• SWIFT: LOYDGB2LCTY

• Bank: LLOYDS BANK PLC

And when investors request withdrawals, money is paid from PECUNIA CARDS EDE, S.L.U. - payment provider from Spain.

But which legal entities (companies) are connected to these accounts? Is it Estonian one or a different one? Not sure.

What about their Mexico operations?

They are giving out loans in Mexico, maybe some other countries as well. But will write about that more in the next part…

Key takeaways

1. Latvian company that is referenced in IBAN Wallet investment platform, is an empty shell. Not reachable, no activity. Looks super shady.

2. IBAN Wallet has an Estonian company with huge turnover that is kind of hidden from investors, only referenced in their affiliate network partner Target Circle

3. IBAN Wallet has some lending operations in Mexico, but more on that later.

There is more…

• Part 1: IBAN Wallet - another P2P ponzi?

• Part 3: Who owns IBAN Wallet?

• Part 4: IBAN Wallet review - 100% scam

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P.S. Join “High-risk investments“ Telegram group for an informal discussion.