England and Manchester City striker Chloe Kelly has become a potential victim of the scandal of sham company incorporations.
As I’ve reported before, Companies House does not carry out any checks on the details filed by new companies, making it easy for crooks to clone real people and businesses.
Chloe, who famously ran around Wembley in her sports bra after scoring the winner in the Women’s Euros final last summer, is the director of her management company CK Image Rights Limited.
On December 30, a company was incorporated called CK Lmage Rlghts Limited.
Any confusion between the two is made all the more likely because the new company has chosen the same registered office address in central London as Chloe’s company.
Mail intended for the genuine company could easily end up going to the new outfit, and I don’t think it’s too cynical to think that’s exactly what is intended.
The sole director of CK Lmage Rlghts is named in Companies House records as a Chinese national called Taihang Li. I would not like to say whether or not this is the real name of the director, given than no identity checks are currently carried out.
I contacted the registered office and asked Li to explain why he’d picked this company name and address but haven’t had a reply.
Now things get so absurd they’re almost unbelievable.
Every new company has to give at least one Standard Industrial Classification or SIC code stating its purpose. CK Lmage Rlghts gives three codes and the first is 01460, which means it claims to be in the business of raising swine or pigs.
The second code it gives is 24460 and so, incredibly, it also claims to be in the nuclear-fuel processing industry.
The third is 46460, so apparently it is also in the pharmaceutical business.
It’s as if whoever formed this company randomly stuck a pin in a list of SIC codes.
This farcically improbable combination naturally went unnoticed at Companies House and it might be funny were it not for the consequences for genuine businesses and their customers.
Professional corporate investigator Graham Barrow said: “There are 70 more companies with exactly the same three SIC codes all of which have cloned real businesses and used the registered address of the real businesses. It’s actually very serious.”
Chloe, who didn’t want to comment on the situation, is just one of many victims of this debacle, including a genuine house builder Quality House Group Ltd.
There’s now a company called Quallty House Group Ltd using the same registered office address.
Computer company Chinstrap Software Ltd has to contend with being potentially confused with the newly incorporated Chlnstrap Software Ltd - honestly, I'm not misspelling these names.
Lincoln restaurant Madame Waffle Ltd faces a new interloper at the same registered office address called Madame Waffie Ltd.
And there’s Mothershlp Brlghton Ltd cloning real pub company Mothership Brighton Ltd.
All these companies claim to be in the business of raising pigs or swine, processing nuclear fuel, and selling pharmaceuticals, so you might have thought that the supposed directors would have an occupation relating to these fields, but no.
Take Madame Waffie. Its director is called Min Goa according to Companies House filings and he or she is a jockey by profession.
The director of Mothershlp Brlghton is Qingsong Liu, and Companies House filings show her to be a dental nurse.
Which prompts the question: why don’t the people setting up these shams at least try to make them sound plausible?
The answer is that they don’t have to bother.
So long as Companies House does not carry out any checks on the information that is filed then the charlatans know they’ll never be challenged.
Another victim is Fiona Fleming, a qualified notary and director of her long-standing company FJF Notary Ltd.
On December 30, a new company was incorporated with the spelling different by just one letter – FJF Notarry Ltd – and using the same registered office address.
According to Companies House, the sole director of the new company is Shaohao Chen, who is from China and, weirdly, a fitness trainer.
Why would a fitness trainer decide to open a notary business? In the real world, he wouldn’t, but this is the fantasy world of Companies House where crooks can file any details they want because they will not be vetted.
Now Fiona has been forced to change her registered office address.
Writing a post on her LinkedIn page, she urged clients to contact her “if you are contacted by anyone telling you that the bank account details for FJF Notary Limited have been changed… certainly do so before sending any money.”
P.S. Late last year Companies House issued a press release “Celebrating our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion”.
What a shame that it can’t celebrate doing something to protect legitimate businesses from this swarm of scam companies.
The promised government reforms of this dire institution cannot come soon enough.
investigate@mirror.co.uk
