Central Bank warns public over cloning of legitimate financial organisations

Sarah Slater

The country's top regulator is warning the public over the cloning of five authorised finance organisations.

The Central Bank issued the warnings on Monday that a fraudulent entity has been seeking to pass itself off as LGT Bank AG, with a Dublin Branch purporting to operate as an investment firm/investment business/banker in the State in the absence of appropriate authorisations.

In this instance, the fraudulent entity cloned and impersonated a legitimate authorised entity in order to deceive customers. The scam entity invited consumers to leave their contact details on a website and then contacted them, seeking to sell a fake bond and term deposits.

The second cloning is GCP Equity Ireland ICAV, operating the websites gcpireland.com and gcp-ireland.com, has been operating as an investment firm, investment business firm and an Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle (ICAV) in the absence of appropriate authorisations.

The fraudulent entity cloned and impersonated a legitimate Central Bank authorised fund in order to deceive customers.

The Central Bank has also warned that the cloning of authorised firm Advance Personal Credit Ltd has occurred.

The cloned firm advertises loans on its website, but it holds no authorisation from the Central Bank as a Retail Credit Firm or as a High Cost Credit Provider.

According to the Central Bank, this scam is an example of an “advance fee fraud, where an upfront payment fee is sought prior to a loan being provided. The loans are never provided.” The unauthorised firm is operating the website advancepersonalcredit.webs.com.

The authorised firm Investments Ireland Limited has also been hit by a cloning.

The fifth fraudulent entity, Aviva Direct Ireland Limited (Clone), has been operating as an investment firm and investment business firm in the absence of appropriate authorisation.

In this instance, the fraudulent entity cloned a legitimate Central Bank authorised firm in order to deceive customers.

The fraudulent entity reached out via email seeking to lure consumers into investing in a fake investment using the prospectus titled: “Aviva: Fixed Rate Passive Global Equity Fund - Prospectus 2022” and “Fixed Rate Income Bond Prospectus 2022”.