A due diligence of VELTYCO Group PLC (nowadays: B90 Holdings plc) done by the founder of EFRI resulted in the arrest of Uwe LENHOFF and Gal BARAK and the blow up of their investment scams (option888, xmarkets, zoomtrader, xtraderfx, safemarkets, optionstarsglobal) as of the end of January 2019 (for more information read here). Back then we did not know the history of the listed vehicle nor did we know the details aobut Lenhoff´s criminal business/organization. This has changed. So we updated our due diligence report and here you can download the final draft of our report.
The amazing thing about VELTYCO is how a fraudulent listed vehicle has been able to go about its business undisturbed for so long under the eyes of the British stock exchange regulator, despite the knowledge of the criminal authorities in Austria, Germany and, we assume, the Netherlands. But the situation is comparable to the story of US-listed company ENRON, which was only convicted of massive accounting fraud in 2001 despite years of reports by whistleblowers to the SEC.
Mass of Special Purpose Entities and Accounting Fraud!
In 2001, the SEC-listed company ENRON went bankrupt as information about fraudulent accounting practices became public. In addition to inflating the income of the entities, ENRON became famous for transferring the troubled operations of the company to so-called special purpose entities (SPEs). Transferring those assets to SPEs meant that they were kept off Enron’s books, making its losses look less severe than they were. Some of those SPEs were run by the CFO of ENRON Andrew Fastow himself.
In contrast to VELTYCO (nowadays B90 Holdings plc), ENRON´s primary business model of energy trading was legal. The AIM-listed VELTYCO (nowadays B90 PLC)´s business model to operate unlicensed and fraudulent binary options and online gaming websites (specifically option888, xmarkets, and zoomtrader) was illegal since the Dutch investor DIRK JAN BAKKER became a significant investor in June 2016 (around 40%) alongside the German serial scammer Uwe Lenhoff (around 43%) and the Israeli binary option veteran Ilan Tzorya (third largest shareholder).
Like ENRON, VELTYCO used special purpose entities (SPE) to take care of the “troubled” parts of the operations of the business model (running investment scams). So the call center operations run in Czech Republic and Serbia by Betim Tasholi and Azem Spahiu for servicing option888, xmarkets and zoomtrader were placed in separate entities as was the ownership of the unlicensed domains.
VELTYCO´s consolidated group accounts pretended to be a “third-party” marketing organization for “licensed” binary option websites.
In violation of IFRS 10:7 Consolidated Financial Statements and similar to ENRON VELTYCO´s audited group statements did not include the financial accounts of the special entities with the “troubled” business parts, although controlled and run by VELTYCO resp. its beneficial owners nor did VELTYCO´s consolidated financial statements provide any details about related party transactions.
The description of the business activities has been misleading and represents brutal lies to the public for many years.
VELTYCO´s special purpose entities
Dirk-Jan BAKKER, a Dutch real estate and online gaming investor and Uwe LENHOFF jointly financed the establishment of the special purpose entities and their business. Dirk-Jan BAKKER introduced BOOKER, the CEO of the payment service provider PAYVISION, who was more than willing to solve an prevailing issue for unlicensed binary option websites. Payvision has laundered the money of the victims for option888, xmarkets, and zoomtrader for years. TZORYA supported in setting up the call centers, selling the domains to ALTAIR t, and establishing and servicing the trading websites (via Tradologic). The directors and beneficial owners of VELTYCO (LENHOFF, DJ BAKKER, Hans DAHLGREN, Mark ROSMAN, Ilan TZORYA) owned and run all these special-purpose entities alongside. No information about the existence of these special-purpose entities was given in the audited financial reports.
.... and VELTYCO keeps going...
Interestingly, even after LENHOFF was arrested in January 2019 and the Austrian and German law enforcement agencies found that he and his colleagues (all of them shareholders and directors of VELTYCO PLC (nowadays: B90 Holdings plc) had scammed thousands of Europeans out of 90 million Euros, VELTYCO (nowadays B90 Holdings plc) continues its illegal operation until the end of 2023.
Dirk-Jan BAKKER changed the name of the listed vehicle to B90 Holdings plc (by now the company has changed its name already three times and we excpect a new change soon) and continued with the loss-making operations of B90 an unlicensed sport betting website originally set up and run by Uwe LENHOFF. VELTYCO continued its business as usual up to the end of 2021. The massive annual losses were financed by Dutch people (close to Dirk-Jan BAKKER). No word in the audited annual accounts 2018 about what happened to the former directors and UBO´s (Ultimate Beneficial Owners) res. business of VELTYCO.
Dirk-Jan BAKKER just looked for some other guy in the online gambling area and found Ronny Breivik, like Uwe Lenhoff a long-term online gambling veteran. Ronny BREIVIK by now is the CEO and a main shareholder of B90 Holdings plc.
Our due diligence found that the habit of providing misleading information to the public is still going on.
So who is Dirk-Jan BAKKER?
The due diligence report established is a story about HOW a Dutch guy who has already been named in connection with serious criminals (Dirk-Jan BAKKER) kept a fraudulent listed entity alive for many years. We are still working on the question WHY did Dirk-Jan BAKKER keep this loss-making listed shell company alive for so many years.
Who enabled the accounting fraud for so many years?
CLA Evelyn Partners Limited, London EC2V 78G, has taken the role of Arthur Anderson, ENRON´s long-term auditor. CLA Evelyn Partners Limited changed its name from Nexia Smith & Williamson Audit LIMITED in June 2022. Nexia was already fined severly for failure to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence in respect of revenue recognition for another audit.
The long-term Financial and Nominated Adviser of VELTYCO (nowadays B90 Holdings plc) is Strand Hanson Limited, London EC2N 1AR, the guy in charge is James Harris.
