Palatine Financial.

They called me yesterday with exactly the same approach as Novantae Capital Holdings a few years back.

How is that?

This just as a hint to keep your ass out of trouble.

They have personally contacted me on various occasions. In the past they masqueraded as “Hibber-Bothwell” and “Novantae Diversified.” Those websites looked and felt the same as that of the “Okuma Group.” Those may not be the only names this organization has used or is currently using. Some research on the internet leads me to believe that they may also be affiliated or associated with “Dai-Ichi Securities” and “Westernfield Holdings” among others.

It would appear that they have also used the following names:

Sirius Holdings
The Sirius Financial
HB Capital Partners
The Toros Group
Pegasus Ventures
Edzell Ventures
Trinity Ventures
Dragon Securities
The Stockton Group

Their scam has basically remained the same over the last few years. They call to offer a special stock with high growth potential at discounted prices. One of the proposed benefits is the supposed “offshore transaction” to avoid taxation.

Their websites look and “feel” fairly professional but there are a number of red flags that should alert any discerning internet user:

- There is very little information in the “About Us” section of the websites.
- The telephone number turns out to be a voice mail and callers refuse to divulge their real phone numbers.
- All calls originate from “undisclosed” numbers.
- If one conducts a WHOIS search to identify the owner of the domain name, one finds that the domain was registered by proxy through GoDaddy.Com. No serious business would do this.
- E-mails cannot be traced…

On the other hand, the scam is somewhat sophisticated. The websites and PDF brochures of this organization are fairly professional. The content is mostly pertinent and well-written (or copied from other sources). The wolf appears disguised as a sheep. There even is an extensive “code of ethics” displayed on their most recent website.

The people that I talked to spoke English fluently although some had a slight Eastern European accent. One person I talked to sounded Greek, some of the others sounded Romanian.

While these people are quite knowledgeable about some aspects of stocks and trading they are ignorant about others. Moreover, their proposition basically amounts to insider trading although they never use this term.

The fact that this organization appears and re-appears indicates that the scam is obviously very successful while law-enforcement authorities are seemingly not taking this crime very seriously. One reason for this may be that the victims of this scam are afraid of contacting the authorities since they did so in the hope of conducting “illegal” financial transactions to avoid taxation and conduct “insider” deals.

Research on the internet suggests that this criminal syndicate may be operating out of Romania. This would allow the syndicate to exploit the comparatively ineffectual and corrupt legal environment of one of the less developed member states of the EU.

Financial transactions are seemingly conducted through Cyprus and other offshore banking locations. This ensures that bank transfers cannot be reversed and the money is gone as soon as the transaction has been made.

The old saying goes “a fool and his money are soon parted.” Today this may happen as soon as a trained trickster of the Okuma Group, formerly known as Novantae Diversified and Hibber-Bothwell, appears out of the dark sewers of the netherworld pretending to be as a legitimate financial adviser and repeatedly calls the unsuspecting victim to discuss some investment opportunities…