1 Undershaft, informally known as the Trellis, is a skyscraper planned for the City of London financial district. Upon completion it will be the second tallest skyscraper in the UK.
Unfortunately, an unscrupulous family group based in Kent, just south of London, saw an opportunity to fleece investors with a bogus bond investment program, supposedly financing the construction. With international banks Morgan Stanley and Commerzbank guaranteeing the investment capital, the 9-year investments allowed investors to double their money plus earn handsome annual dividends. Or so they thought.
Trade Mark International, a Cayman company with web-site www.trademarkint.com, featuring industry experts and a snazzy slide presentation, was presented to investors as the financing company for the Trellis. Financial marketer Paul Mantoura of Brazil “front” Platinum Associates (www.platinumassociates.com.br) met with investors and raised, in his own words, over $ 5 million.
Using a complex set of Jersey and Mauritius trusts, investors signed up, somehow failing to notice they were sending their investment monies directly to Mantoura’s UK bank account. On February 2018, www.trademarkint.com started to show investment news, and investors were happy.
Then entered COVID-19, and communication become sketchy, Interpol got involved, according to Mantoura, and suddenly investors received no dividend, no news, and grew concerned.
Intel Suisse, a financial investigation specialist firm, was called in, and pieced together the fraud.
Trade Mark International never existed, in Cayman or anywhere else. The webhost firm confirmed Paul Mantoura’s ownership of www.trademarktint.com, which he acquired in 2017. And the Trellis architect had never heard of Trade Mark International…
The investigation is complete, now investment recovery is the menu of the day.
