Is Santander International Limited legit or a scam?

Santraderinternationallimited.com was reported by a consumer who claimed the company regularly changes their IP address,FXCM  and offers to pay insurance to unknown companies in exchange for loans. FTI decided to review the website and these are our findings.

What Is Santrader International Limited?

According to the About page on their website, the company is “acutting edge Properties Investment And Business Development Financing Company that focuses on the human elements of wealth creation and funding providing an invaluable window of opportunity to entrepreneurs in today's competitive business environment”. 

The issue with this description is that  it is the same as on several other websites including Kinfan HK Limited, Symphonic Group Limited, Gordon Road International Limited (currently dissolved) and Talatex Limited. Another common thread is that all these companies are registered in Hong Kong. 

We often see scammers using texts from other websites. The copied texts therefore made us suspicious and more so because analysis run on Santrader’s domain showed it as sharing the same domain registrar AND IP address with 71 other domains. Of these domains, over 70% had very low trust scores indicating suspicious activity.

Below are screenshots of Santrader’s and Kinfan’s AboutPages:

Santander AboutPage

Santander AboutPage

Kinfan HK AboutPage

Services Rendered By Santrader International

In a pattern similar to what is obtainable on its Aboutpage, Santander’s Servicespage also appears to be a generic page cloned across several sites that use basically the same terminology. 

For companies who claim to be about offering investment and loan  services to the public, it is quite interesting that the description on the Servicespages then announce them as ‘not-for-profit membership organisations’.

Santrader ServicesPage

Santrader ServicesPage

Kinfan Limited ServicesPage

Symphonic Group Limited ServicesPage

Legitimacy

Santrader International Limited is indeed a private company limited by shares and registered in Hong Kong. It was incorporated on October 21st 2019 and the domain bought in March of 2020.  Going through its incorporation information, there was no mention of it being a non-profit organisation or having a ‘non-profit arm’ for that matter.

To verify the claim of change in IP addresses to conduct business, FTI indeed noticed there had been a change in Santrader’s IP address three (3) times in 2020 alone. The first was on April 3rd, then April 15th, and the last time recorded was on July 15th. As there was no corresponding change in Registrar Information alongside the IP change, it is unclear if the purpose of these changes was to carry out fraudulent activities.

All other WHOIS data pertaining to the domain could not be accessed as they have been withheld for privacy.

Location

Santrader may have been incorporated in Hong Kong, but it lists its Headquarters as being located within the Empire State Building in New York. On the website, the Home Page has a map indicating an office address in Hong Kong, while the Contact Page has a map showing an office address within the Empire State building.

A search on the residents of the building however could not verify this claim as Santrader is not currently listed as a tenant of the Building, nor was it ever listed as a tenant. The address in Hong Kong is simply a road.

Santrader is also neither listed as a recognised investment company in New York City nor in Hong Kong; both cities from which the company supposedly operates. 

Santander Office Address on Home Page

Santander Office Address on Contact Page

Getting In Contact

FTI could not, as at the time of this report, confirm any information about the business from Santrader itself. This is because there is no contact information listed on the website, save for the office address and a contact form. There are also no social media pages displayed on the site and a search for the company on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram yielded no results.

Conclusion

For an organisation claiming to engage in such high-risk financial activities, there appears to be a lot of mis-matched or inconsistent information being communicated by the business itself. The lack of publicly verifiable information about its operations and location is also quite concerning. FTI would therefore advise that any business engagement with Santrader International Limited and seemingly related companies (see below) should be carried out with great caution as the business is most likely a scam.

List of Similar Companies Found:

symphonicgroupltd.com

kinfanhklimited.com

talatexlimited.com

hanshunk.com

morganbarks.com

westworldpetroleumgrouplimited.com

This article has been written by a scam fighter volunteer. If you believe the article above contains inaccuracies or is missing relevant information, please contact FTI.com using this form.