Magnum Intercontinental Trust / www.mit-shore.com
This notice is issued by the Financial Supervision Commission (“the Commission”) in accordance with the powers conferred upon it under Section 22 of the Financial Supervision Act 1988.
The MIT website www.mit-shore.com has been brought to the attention of the Commission.
MIT through the website claims to offer “banking, trust, corporate and other services”. It claims to do so from “Circular Road, Douglas, IM1 1AS, British Isles, United Kingdom.”
To offer banking and corporate services on or from the Isle of Man requires a licence from the Commission. MIT is not licensed to conduct any of the claimed activities, and the Commission has no record of any application from MIT for any licence. It is a criminal offence to offer, or claim to offer, banking and corporate services without the relevant licence.
The location MIT claims to operate from, Circular Road, does exist. However, the relevant number of any supposed premises is not stated on the MIT website, and the postcode IM1 1AS refers to an unrelated residential property elsewhere in Douglas. The telephone numbers stated for MIT are not Isle of Man numbers. 0709 238 4907, the main contact number listed for MIT, is a UK mobile telephone number.
The Commission would therefore warn that MIT is not a legitimate financial services company on the Isle of Man, and that its website is in breach of Isle of Man legislation.
The Commission maintains a list of legitimate licensed financial institutions operating from the Isle of Man.
The Commission issued a Public Notice on 23 May 2003 regarding Trust Meridien, which through its website http://trustmeridien.com was making a bogus claim to offer a wide range of financial services from the Isle of Man.
On the “Directors” page of the Meridien website, there are a number of photographs of the supposed directors of Meridien. Many of the names of the supposed Meridien directors are the same as the names of the supposed MIT directors, whose photographs appear on the MIT website.
However, despite supposedly being the same persons, the photographs are of different people on the two websites.
The properties of the photographs of the supposed MIT directors can be viewed by right clicking on the relevant photographs. In the case of Paul Robinson, Vincent Castillas, Julian Hester and Larry Kodan, the photograph properties show the names of other persons.
Investigations by the Commission indicate that the photographs have been lifted from a legitimate website in the USA. The Commission is completely satisfied that neither the organisation nor the individuals concerned have any knowledge of or connection with MIT.
The Commission would urge any person considering doing business with MIT to exercise the greatest possible caution, bearing in mind the content of this Public Notice.
Any queries about this Public Notice should be directed to the Enforcement Division on +44 1624 689312 or by email to fsc@gov.im.
FSC Reference: ASW/23/2003