Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), Hong Kong’s financial regulatory body, included on Thursday six new companies to its Alert List for operating without a license and pretending to be associated to an authorized entity. The companies are Blackrock Financial Co., MLI Ltd, Witter Financial Group, Foland Hampton International Finance Co., Champion Trust Fund, and Champion Token.
Blackrock Financial Co. and Foland Hampton International Finance Co. (www.flkl8.com) improperly claims to be associated with SFC-licensed BlackRock Asset Management North Asia and Franklin Templeton Investments (Asia), respectively. They provide Hong Kong address of secretarial companies and present them as their own. Such companies that use the details of a genuine entity with the idea to deceive investors, are called clone companies.
Foland Hampton International Finance provides its services via www.flkl8.com, while Blackrock Financial operates via six websites, neither of which is active any longer:
- 815048.com
- 078517.com
- 860119.com
- 697338.com
- 211776.com
- 093944.com
Meanwhile, Witter Financial Group (www.witter-financial.com) has been added to the SFC Alert List since it provides an incomplete Hong Kong address and uses bank accounts under a differnet names, Denvier Ltd and Tricorp Ltd.
The remaining three companies – MLI Ltd (www.mli-hk.com), Champion Trust Fund (www.ctfhk.com, www.ctfpe.com), and Champion Token (www.ctlpe.com, www.apit-champion.com) give Hong Kong addresses, but are not actually based there.
The SFC is in charge of the licensing and supervision of financial intermediaries, brokers, investment advisers, fund managers that operate on the Hong Kong securities and futures markets.
In the Alert List, the regulator adds entities that may operate in Hong Kong or target local citizens without having the required license. Entities that claim to be associated with an authorized Hong Kong companies, when in reality they are not, are also entered into the Alert List.
Source: SFC
