The International Trading Place Fraud
is a pretty minimalist fraud with a relatively simple website, (for
these
crooks), and little attempt made to disguise the obvious illegal money
mule function that they spamvertise. This is an identical scam to the Interpay Group Fraud.
This
fraudster bears no
relation to any other company of a same or similar name and
should not be
confused. The above website graphics and the money laundering job below
are intended to identify this fraudster alone.
Known Website Domains
onlineitp.co.uk itpexiva.co.uk
Registrar
Register.com Inc Register.com Inc
Registration
Date
10-Dec-2007 22-Jan-2007
IP Address
65.49.16.16 72.52.110.112
Host
Hurricane Electric Hurricane Electric
Active Suspended
Evidence
of
Criminal Fraud:
i)Contact Details from website:
International Trading Place Ispahan Road Killorglin Co. Kerry Ireland
Tel : 888-780-7984
Although it's an identical website to the Interpay Group fraud, the
location has shifted from Athens to Ireland. An Irish friend tells me
that there is no Ispahan Road in Killorglin and this street map
of the town confirms it. It is clearly a fake address. The telephone
number is also a fake number with a US format and no Irish country code
ii) From the
website: "ITP was set-up in 1996 to operate Bureau de Change facilities throughout
Ireland."
However, the domain itpexiva.co.ukused by this fraudster was
registered on 22-Jan-2007.
iii) International Trading Place
has
no
internet presence at all, apart from numerous listings as spammers and
scammers which lends the lie to their website
statement "The
company has operations in Ireland, UK, Spain, Italy, Germany,
Malta, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, USA, Japan, Australia and Dubai.". It is an evident falsehood.
iv) This is
the obvious
money mule job
from the website:
USA
Wire Service
Because of new law in European Union,
any company, that receives money transfer from
non-EU company, has
to pay VAT (Value Added Tax), 20% from incoming transfer.
But EU company doesn't have to pay VAT receiving money transfer from person.
That's why we can save these money.
You will be handling our transactions in USA, acting
as our Transaction Manager.
You will be receiving transfers for our company, and redirect them to us,
taking 10% as your commission. You will be able to make
approx $2500-$3000
per month, working 1-2 hours per week for this job.
The main objective of our company is to provide opportunities in
career building for people with little or no previous backgrounds.
We won't ask you about your credit rating. We don't work for collection agencies.
Being a long-established solid corporation we understand how important is to
provide our customers the best possibilities and support. We always try our best to
be cooperative and
customer-friendly
Requirements are simple:
- Being of Legal age (over 18 years old)
- Home address and phone number
- Internet access, couple of hours per day
In other words a classic ILLEGAL
money mule job.
v) If a person responds to the spam or spamvertised 'job', they are asked to fill in and return this agreement from the website which merely serves to reinforce the clear money mule function: International Trading Place
Agreement of Terms
I, _______________________________ ,
ACCEPT the following terms
I authorize ITP Company to receive payments
into my personal bank account
Bank address:
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
I agree to forward the
funds for ITP Company within 2 business days; this 2 business day period
starts after the funds have been received and the payment request has
been made by ITP Company.
I understand that if
I delay the transfer, I will support a 1% daily penalty.
ITP Company agrees to
pay a 10% commission for this service, which will be paid via a certified
check within 10 business days.
Any transfer fees will
be supported by ITP Company; these will be deducted from the amount
received.
The commission can also
be deducted from the received funds (immediate payment); however if
an immediate payment is requested, ITP Company will offer a lower 6%
commission instead.
ITP Company will indicate
the desired transfer method.
vi) No
legitimate company would advertise for private citizens to do a
part-time illegal
job working from home exchanging money as above. The above
evidence clearly demonstrates that the The International Trading Place
website is a fraudulent website set up with intent to deceive. If you
are an abuse team that has received an abuse
report regarding these fraudsters, please
consider immediate
termination of their services in view of the absolutely undeniable
evidence of criminal fraud - please don't delay - these criminals will not
respond to any communication from you, (all their whois data is usually
false),
but will simply take advantage of any attempt
at communication as a delaying tactic to allow them time to carry on
their criminal activity and prepare
their
next network.
Spam Sample Please allow me to
introduce myself,
I am Philip Campbell, US Representative of International Trading Place.
We
are a privately owned company, based in Ireland and focused on providing
European companies a fast and reliable way of receiving payments from
non-EU countries. Because of the European Union laws, any company that
recieves money transfers from non-EU companies has to pay VAT (Value
Added Tax), 16% of all incoming transfers. But we don't have to pay the
VAT as long as we receive money transfers from a US resident person and
this way we can save a lot of money. Therefore, we are seeking for a
trust-able person in USA who owns a bank account in order to receive
payments by wire transfers from our US clients.
We agree to
deposit funds into your US bank account if you accept 7% of these funds
as payment for your services. You will only be responsible for sending
the remaining of the funds to our company in Europe by Western Union or
MoneyGram. The fees for sending these payments will be deducted from
our 93%. After the funds will be deposited into your bank account and
the wire transfer is clear, you will be contacted by one of our staff
to indicate you where to send the money. The only thing that is needed
in order to work with us is to open a new bank account or if you
already own one we can use that account to receive payments.
There
is no reason for your concern regarding your bank account information,
as we are only asking for information needed to send money to you. We
do not request any access to your bank account. Basically we need you
to withdraw 93% of the amount you'll receive and send it to one of our
European clients within 2 business days after the wire transfer is
clear to your account. You will also deduct any transfer fees from this
93%.
The main objective of our company is to provide
opportunities in career building for people with little or no previous
backgrounds. We won't ask you about your credit rating. We don't work
for collection agencies. Being a long-established solid corporation we
understand how important is to provide our customers the best
possibilities and support. We always try our best to be cooperative and
customer-friendly.
Requirements are simple:
- Being of Legal age (over 21 years old)
- Home address and phone number
- Internet access, couple of hours per day
DNS Data:
How I am searching:
Searching for onlineitp.co.uk A record at l.root-servers.net [199.7.83.42]: Got referral to ns7.nic.uk. (zone: uk.) [took 70 ms]
Searching for onlineitp.co.uk A record at ns7.nic.uk.
[212.121.40.130]: Got referral to ns2.he.net. (zone: onlineitp.co.uk.)
[took 123 ms]
Searching for onlineitp.co.uk A record at ns2.he.net. [216.218.131.2]: Reports onlineitp.co.uk. [took 50 ms]
Response:
Domain
Type
Class
TTL
Answer
onlineitp.co.uk.
A
IN
86400
65.49.16.16
Looking up at the 2 onlineitp.co.uk. parent servers:
Server
Response
ns2.he.net [216.218.131.2]
65.49.16.16
ns1.he.net [216.218.130.2]
65.49.16.16
The current host of this criminal is Hurricane Electric of Fremont, CA. (65.49.16.16)
Fraud Log:
Initial set-up 26th. Mar 2008 ***Latest News*** 13th. April 2008 The criminal has removed his website content from http://www.onlineitp.co.uk/,
but the domain onlineitp.co.uk is still active and useable as a
mail-drop domain for email based fraud spam using the active MX IP
67.210.106.142. DNS Data:
How I am searching:
Searching for onlineitp.co.uk A record at a.root-servers.net [198.41.0.4]: Got referral to NS5.NIC.uk. (zone: uk.) Searching for onlineitp.co.uk A record at NS5.NIC.uk.
[213.246.167.131]: Got referral to ns2.lunarmania.com. (zone:
onlineitp.co.uk.)
Searching for onlineitp.co.uk A record at ns2.lunarmania.com. [67.210.99.2]: Reports onlineitp.co.uk. Response:
Domain
Type
Class
TTL
Answer
onlineitp.co.uk.
A
IN
14400
67.210.106.142
onlineitp.co.uk.
NS
IN
86400
ns2.lunarmania.com.
onlineitp.co.uk.
NS
IN
86400
ns1.lunarmania.com.
ns1.lunarmania.com.
A
IN
1800
67.210.98.2
ns2.lunarmania.com.
A
IN
1800
67.210.99.2
Looking up at the 2 onlineitp.co.uk. parent servers:
Server
Response
ns2.lunarmania.com [67.210.99.2]
67.210.106.142
ns1.lunarmania.com [67.210.98.2]
67.210.106.142
The current host is ADD2NET.COM INC DBA LUNARPAGES ***Latest News*** 12th. May 2008 The criminal's domain onlineitp.co.uk has been suspended This criminal is still active with the following domain - itpexiva.co.uk registered with Register.com Inc (22-Jan-2007) DNS Data
Looking up at the 3 itpexiva.co.uk. parent servers:
Server
Response
ns3.he.net [216.218.132.2]
72.52.110.112
ns2.he.net [216.218.131.2]
72.52.110.112
ns1.he.net [216.218.130.2]
72.52.110.112
Once again the listed host for the criminal's IP 72.52.110.112 is Hurricane Electric. This time the criminal is using Hurricane Electric's DNS servers.
