Scammers never seem to take a break with the latest fraud going through "financial advisors" claiming to work for a small Hong Kong based company called Olympus International Limited. They are using the same expats database as the Brookfield Investment Funds Plc scam, and call potential investors telling them about inside information about FireEye (FEYE) having signed a large contract from Facebook, yet to be publicly announced, and expect the stock to go up at a minimum of 40% in three months.
Getting a call from an investor survey company
It all start the same way as the Brookfield scam, with a cold call from an investor survey company asking some details about you and your investor profile that takes about 5 minutes. Shortly later you'll received an email summarizing your answers from "clientform@www.dq-datamanager.com".
They ask about your job, experience in investing, budget to buy stocks, and whether you could be interested in opportunities if they present themselves.
First Olympus International Limited Calls
Then a couple of weeks later, you may received a call from an investment company in this case: Olympus international Limited based in Hong Kong.
The financial advisor may speak your native language or English, and they'll offer you short term investment opportunities with close to guaranteed returns. The offer we were made aware for FireEye, listed in the NASDAQ with the sticker FEYE, and claims of inside information about a contract having been signed with Facebook. They claim to be an institutional investment firm, but also work with individual when opportunities arise. They also explain they can purchase the stock as a cheaper price since they buy in large blocks, and ask you to confirm over the phone.
The call we were told about involved Ms. Olivia Martel, Senior Financial Advisor. That's likely a fake name. The website is https://olympusintltd.com/ and telephone: +852 5803 7265.
Olympus International Limited is real...
Hong Kong keeps a company registry so it's easy to check if a company exists.
The company was registered in 2003, so it's been doing business for over 17 years. The company registration number is 0846150 and matches the number used in the emails with seen from the scammers.
But cracks can be found pretty quickly...
This almost looks legit, but when we look at the website WHOIS data, it was only created in August 2020, that's a long time for a company to operate without a website.
They optimized their costs too by going with one of the cheapest domain registrar, and the free Let's Encrypt TLS certificate service. But at least everything is under a secure connection contrary to what's we've seen with Brookfield website...
If we look for Olympus International Limited Hong Kong on the web, we can find what types of products they offer: namely ceramic and stainless plates or other kitchen utensils.
But who am I to judge. Time are tough, and it's possible the company decided to change the direction of the business. But if you're going to offer financial services in Hong Kong you need to register with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) which again keeps a database of registered companies.
The only registered company with "Olympus" in the name is "Olympus Partners Asia Limited". But I'm sure Ms. Olivia Martel would not have lie about her status to the face of her client.
No matched record for "Olivia Martel" or even just "<artel"? How is that possible? That's because it's a total scam, and a group of individuals likely using fake names are using the name and CR number of a real, completely unrelated company.
Let's invest in FireEye/Facebook scam!
Most sane people who figured out this was a scam, would just block the number of ignore. So are we still interested? You bet! One Ms. Martel called back, our source said due-diligence was done, and he/she was ready to go ahead with the proposal start with a small $5,000 investment. Once the number of share was agreed upon, price (around $1 cheaper than live quote at the time), and it was explained payment would have to be made through an escrow company and was due within 3 working days. A call from an "SEC compliance officer" called Mr. Michael Winters soon followed double-checking the transaction details and requiring an audio signature by simply saying the full name.
The purchase was confirmed the following day, and the investor was given a receipt, an account opening form, and a W8 form for US taxes.
The procedure is pretty similar to the one used by Brookfield Investment Funds Plc so far, but there's a twist as this time around a proof of address and copy of address is being asked first, before the payment details of the escrow company are provided. That's probably to avoid all those leaks that have happened on this website and others in the past. The escrow company (aka money mule) takes a central part in the scam so they only want to limit the distributions of the information to the minimum. Since our source did not use his/her real name, the use of a fake passport copy and proof of address, and filling a W8 form with falsified information would have been required. We did advise against it.
If you've been scammed, or managed to obtain the money mule information, please let us know in the comments section.
