Who’s behind the fake banks on Companies House?

One man has set up a series of fake banks on Companies House – with real bank names, no checks, and zero consequences. When he’s caught, he does it again. And he’s been facilitated by a legitimate incorporation agent that, for reasons we don’t understand, incorporated an obviously fraudulent fake bank for him.

This report identifies a serial fraudster, the incorporation agent that enabled him, and how we can stop these frauds in the future.

Meet the fake banker

Meet Barbarat Giuseppe, the world’s most prolific banker. He’s run most of the world’s largest banks: JPMorgan, Soc Gen, SEB, Citi, Westpac, Natixis, Goldman Sachs, and many more:

Mr Giuseppe’s spectacular career is spoilt only by the small detail that it’s all fraudulent.

And it’s also spoilt by the other small detail that Giuseppe might not exist, or could be an innocent person whose name has been stolen (although why someone would invent or steal such an unusual name is unclear).¹We’d certainly assume that the other named directors of these companies are fictitious.

“Giuseppe” sometimes gets caught. Perhaps an investigator like Graham Barrow spots one of the fake banks and informs the real bank. Then the real bank has to apply to the UK’s most obscure court, the Company Names Tribunal, for an order changing the company’s name. Here’s an example, brought by the real UBS against “UBS Group AG Ltd”. The fraudsters didn’t bother to defend their position, and the company was then renamed to “14695023 LTD” (after its company number).

The problem is that then nothing happens. No investigation by the police or any regulator.

In one case, the bank made a report to the police and was told that it was a civil matter. In another, a bank was told that the police couldn’t take any action unless a victim of fraud came forward.²Neither of these were the UBS Bank AG Ltd case.

The fraudsters therefore act with total impunity.

So what happened after the fake “UBS Group AG Ltd” was forcibly renamed by the Tribunal and Companies House to “14695023 Ltd”? The fraudsters renamed it again – to “Goldman Sachs Finance Ltd“, and kept going. That wasn’t a one-off.

What is the scam? It’s hard to say. One knowledgable insider told me he suspects it’s money laundering – Giuseppe opens up a bank account in a country with slack KYC procedures and provides ID showing he’s the director of Goldman Sachs. But it could be almost anything – investor fraud, money laundering, sanctions-busting…

And Giuseppe is only one of many playing the same game. In 2024 there were nine defended Company Names Tribunal cases (which appear to have been bona fide disputes). There were 339 undefended orders – most of which look like plain fraud.

Who helped him do it?

The fraud is obvious on the face of the companies’ incorporation documents: a company called “UBS Group AG Ltd”, with the declared beneficial owner an individual living in France. It’s obviously nothing to do with the real UBS. The stated (paid) share capital of EUR1bn makes reasonably clear this isn’t someone’s weird game, but simple fraud.

So who incorporated the company? The incorporation document contains a statement of compliance:

The declared agent is “Registered Office (UK) Ltd”, which³The missing brackets appear to be an error – there was a company called Registered Office UK Ltd, without the brackets, but it dissolved in 2015, eight years before the fake UBS company was incorporated. trades as The London Office and MYCO Formations.

We see a statement of compliance from Registered Office (UK) Ltd on all the Barbarat fake bank companies.

The precise status of Registered Office (UK) Ltd isn’t clear to us. Generally speaking, companies providing incorporation or registered office services are treated as a TCSP (trust or company services provider) and have to be regulated for anti-money laundering (AML) purposes, usually by HMRC. However we can’t see Registered Office (UK) Ltd on the HMRC list.⁴It’s also not on the FCA register. The HMRC list does list “MYCO Works” as a trading name of Alpha Commerce Ltd, and “London Office” as a trading name of Cooper Davis Associates Ltd, but we don’t know if these are the same businesses – the London Office and MYCO Works websites clearly state that the relevant legal entity is Registered Office (UK) Ltd. Either way, if Registered Office (UK) Ltd is undertaking incorporations then it ought to be registered. A previous story suggested that Registered Office (UK) Ltd believed all they had to do to comply with AML rules was to check clients’ passports. This is not correct.

The first response from Registered Office (UK) Ltd

The Barbarat network was first spotted by Graham Barrow two years ago, and he asked MYCO about this.

MYCO Works said they’d investigate:

There’s been no response since. Nor was there any response when we wrote to Registered Office (UK) Ltd back in February asking for comment.

Registered Office (UK)’s defence

We wrote to Registered Office (UK) Ltd again this week – and MYCO Works (their trading name) replied. They first claimed the fraudsters “just used our address”. After we pressed, the story changed – blaming their software and, finally, Companies House.

Here’s the complete chain.

This is Registered Office (UK) Ltd telling us that they didn’t incorporate the UBS Group AG Ltd, but just provided a registered office:

We asked how that could be. The company was incorporated stating that Registered Office (UK) Ltd was the incorporation agent. Even if that could be forged (and I wasn’t sure it could be), surely they would have spotted the forgery, and the other obvious signs of fraud, and not accepted it as a client?

MYCO Works then escalated the matter internally, and we received a completely different response, which doesn’t make much sense:

We replied saying that we didn’t understand how they could let unknown people use their software to incorporate companies, and received another response blaming software:

This again makes no sense. The reference to Companies House’s lack of verification looks like a distraction. Legally, an incorporation agent is responsible for companies they incorporate. That’s clear from the statement of compliance filed when UBS Group AG Ltd was incorporated

We don’t know what Registered Office (UK) Ltd is doing, or why it thinks it’s acceptable to let third parties incorporate companies in its name. We can’t imagine they knew that a fraud was being committed, but they seem to have taken the business decision to let absolutely anyone incorporate absolutely anything in their name.

The bottom line: Registered Office (UK) Ltd provided a certificate of compliance for a string of fake banks, each incorporated with obviously fake share capital of hundreds of millions or billions of pounds. Those certificates of compliance were false – and that should have consequences.

How to shut this down

There are three obvious steps that could be taken.

First, we need to see prosecutions. Skip the hard stuff of finding victims of fraud. Do an “Al Capone” and prosecute the easy offences instead. Anyone filing false information with Companies House has committed a criminal offence.

If (as in Giuseppe’s case) they do knowingly, it’s punishable by up to two years in jail. And Giuseppe has claimed to have paid £100m for shares in the fake UBS/Goldman Sachs (almost certainly false), and provided Companies House with a series of false addresses.

Second, Companies House should introduce address verification. Right now anyone can incorporate a company giving Buckingham Palace as their address – there are no checks whatsoever. But if someone falsely uses your address for their company, you have to provide full identification details to Companies House to get it fixed. That doesn’t feel right.

There are many ways to solve this: the simplest would be for Companies House to send automated letters with a security code to the registered office address, and only finalise incorporations once the security code has been entered.

Third: the authorities should go after the facilitators: legitimate businesses who share responsibility for the fraud. Not because they are criminals, but because (we believe) they’ve decided that conducting even small checks is inconvenient for their business. It appears in this case, providing fraudsters (unwittingly but, in our view, unethically) with the means to incorporate companies with zero oversight.

When that business decision facilitates fraud, it should have consequences. The lack of any due diligence suggests a breach of anti-money laundering rules. However the more serious consequence is the basic criminal offence (an unlimited fine but no jail time), which applies to any person who, without reasonable excuse, causes a false document to be delivered to Companies House.

It seems likely that this criminal offence was committed by the company formation agent, Registered Office (UK) Ltd.⁵Unless they had a “reasonable excuse”. Our view is that letting third parties submit documents for you, without checking them is not a “reasonable excuse”. We will continue to see company formation agents facilitating fraud until there is a strong deterrent – meaning well-publicised prosecutions.

Many thanks to N for the original tip, and L, O and C for their input. And, most of all, to Graham Barrow for spotting this network years ago, and for freely providing us with his invaluable expertise.

• 1
  We’d certainly assume that the other named directors of these companies are fictitious.
• 2
  Neither of these were the UBS Bank AG Ltd case.
• 3
  The missing brackets appear to be an error – there was a company called Registered Office UK Ltd, without the brackets, but it dissolved in 2015, eight years before the fake UBS company was incorporated.
• 4
  It’s also not on the FCA register. The HMRC list does list “MYCO Works” as a trading name of Alpha Commerce Ltd, and “London Office” as a trading name of Cooper Davis Associates Ltd, but we don’t know if these are the same businesses – the London Office and MYCO Works websites clearly state that the relevant legal entity is Registered Office (UK) Ltd. Either way, if Registered Office (UK) Ltd is undertaking incorporations then it ought to be registered.
• 5
  Unless they had a “reasonable excuse”. Our view is that letting third parties submit documents for you, without checking them is not a “reasonable excuse”.