Flat 43 in a grey tower block in Tower Hamlets looks like many other social housing properties across London. To the family living in the property, it is unremarkable. However, the address has become of interest to some of the country’s biggest companies after it has appeared to be used to create dozens of clone businesses for the purposes of what looks like fraud.
Almost 200 businesses can be found at Companies House, the official register of firms, which list the flat in Perkins House as their address.
The majority of those have been created in the past two years. They include companies with names that are similar to brands operated by Abrdn, the FTSE 100 asset manager, Boots, the high-street chemist, and Beck’s, the brewery owned by AB InBev.
In January, the address was used to register UK Aberdeen Asset Management Limited. It sounds like the asset management business that merged with its rival, Standard Life, in 2017, and renamed as Abrdn last year.
However, its sole director is Feng Leizhang, a Chinese citizen living in Jiangsu province, who is also listed as having significant control of the company.
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The address has also been used to register Boots (Cosmetics) UK Ltd, in a plain imitation of the Boots chain owned by Walgreens Boots Alliance. The company was incorporated in July and lists its sole director as Lin Jiaqi, an individual with a correspondence address in Guangdong province.
A woman living at the property with her husband, who did not want to be named, said that she was aware of the problem because they keep getting letters connected to the companies. “We’ve got loads of stuff coming in and our address is being used,” she said. However, she said that she did not know who was behind it all.
The property is thought to have become the victim of what is known as virtual squatting, where an address is hijacked for fraudulent purposes.
Companies registered at flat 43 are among many examples of dubious filings at the corporate registry, which is not required to check the veracity of the information filed.
The government has announced plans to reform the registrar so that the identity of directors, people with significant control and those filing on behalf of a company, must be verified. The registrar will also be given new powers to query and check information.
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However, legislation required to bring forward the reforms has yet to be introduced.
Kevin Hollinrake, a Conservative MP, said: “It is inconceivable that in 21st century Britain we are allowing our corporate structures to be used and abused on such an industrial scale. It makes a mockery of our systems, and it is critical that this is ended, now.”
Mark Taber, an accountant and anti-fraud campaigner who first spotted the abuse of the address at Perkins House and reported it to Money Marketing, a financial news website, said that once someone has registered a company in a name close to a major brand, they can set up bank accounts in that name which can be used to receive sums from an investment or savings fraud.
The addresses could be used as an invoice diversion fraud designed to dupe suppliers or customers of a large trusted business.
Abrdn has reported the clone company registered to Perkins House to the Financial Conduct Authority. However, it is understood that the FCA cannot issue a clone company alert without more evidence that the registered company has actively pretended to be Abrdn or any other regulated firm.
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Abrdn made an application to the Company Names Tribunal in January, but the clone company has yet to be struck off the register.
At separate addresses, Microsoft and Santander are among the big businesses whose names have been misused by suspected Companies House scammers. A similar problem was found by The Times to be linked to the Wirecard scandal, with hundreds of companies described as “phoney” by US prosecutors registered to Virtual London Offices, which provides a corporate address and services such as mail forwarding.
The director involved, an Austrian calling himself Peter Adam, had never registered with or paid for any of the services. He is alleged to have done the same to other virtual office providers. The bogus companies were used to fool online retailers into accepting high risk or illegal payments by disguising the nature of the product being purchased.
Last week The Times reported that more than 30 banks had registered addresses in Eaton Square in Belgravia, central London, which is one of the country’s most exclusive addresses. However, none of those banks is registered with the City regulator and they are likely to be scams. As part of legislation introduced this month to clamp down on dirty money in the UK after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Companies House will be responsible for maintaining a register that will require anonymous foreign owners of UK property to reveal their identities and not hide behind shell companies.
Lord Sikka, an accountancy professor and Labour peer who has campaigned for tighter regulation of Companies House, said: “This [Perkins House] is just another example of the failures of Companies House, and what the government is doing is piling on even more responsibilities on it, such as those relating to the register of overseas companies property ownership, but without checking, without ensuring that Companies House is fit for purpose. At the moment, it is not.”
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A spokeswoman for Poplar Housing and Residents Community Association, which owns the flat in Perkins House involved in the apparent fraud, said: “We take the fraudulent use of our homes seriously.
“We’re not able to comment on this specific address, however we do investigate reports of fraud and take appropriate action when there is proven misuse of our homes.”
