Complaint against El-Baahir Group

We are financial consultants based is London. We recently came across a big Investment Group based in Bahrain titled El-Baahir Group. This Group has a very impressive website http://www.el-baahirgroup.com/ and it claims to be a multinational enterprise made up of more than 20 companies and affiliated businesses. The Group claims to be a leading, 3,000-employee strong, conglomerate that has successfully operated since the mid-1950 in the Kingdom of Bahrain’s governmental, industrial and consumer sectors. Founded in 1950, the Group claims to have spent more than 56 years building its reputation on a bedrock of dedication, integrity, teamwork, continual improvement, and growth.
Negotiating on behalf of a client based in Turkey, we provided loads of documentation to the Chief Investment Officer of El-Baahir Group, Mr. Ammar Abdullah. who after a lengthy scrutinization of documents coupled with conference calls with the clients, sanctioned a loan of US $ 23 million for their Goat Farming Project. Thereafter they sent us an LOI and asked us to provide a Surety Bond for US $ 23 million. In an e-mail, El-Baahir Group recommended the name of Swift Middle East Insurance again based in Bahrain, whose Head of Bonds and Underwriting Department Mr. Zayed Mohamed spoke to us on phone. This group again has a very impressive website http://www.swiftmiddleeast.com/. They offered us Surety Bond for US $ 23 million at a premium of 0.1 percent and asked us to remit US $ 23,000 to their bank account. The client decided not to pay anything upfront and we entered into a negotiation of resolving this issue by visiting their offices in Bahrain.
It was at this stage that the cat came out of the bag and El-Baahir Group CIO stopped replying to our e-mails. El-Baahir Group CIO refused to issue the Borrowers an invitation to visit their offices in Bahrain and said that it is not the policy of the group to invite entrepreneurs to their offices. Furthermore, we informed the insurance company that we will be visiting their offices and would pay them their insurance premium in cash within their office. The Swift Middle East Company declined to accept cash payment and said that the only mode of payment acceptable to them was through on-line transfer into their Bahrain Bank Account.
All these developments created a doubt in my mind and I decided to investigate the authenticity of the companies we are dealing with. El-Baahir group in not being traded on Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry and most of its e-mails are bouncing back. El-Baahir Group is not a public limited company and is not listed on Bahrain or any other Stock exchange in Middle East. Further investigations revealed that the domain name El-Baahir Group has been registered in USA.The following is the registrant:
Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration [email protected]
Domains By Proxy, LLC
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598
Their Bahrain telephone calls are all being re-directed to USA and some one posing as CIO of the Group is answering these calls. The following links are linked to this group.
http://bh.linkedin.com/pub/el-azar-baahir/39/190/b49
http://pk.linkedin.com/pub/ammar-abdullah/a/58a/772
http://ae.linkedin.com/pub/salim-hamad/3a/353/675
http://bh.linkedin.com/pub/saleh-kamel/42/4ba/81a

I have also traced the IP address associated with their e-mail address [email protected] :
IP: 188.121.52.246 server location: Netherlands ISP: Go Daddy Netherlands B.V.
This proves that all e-mails are coming from Holland. I can say that with authenticity that we were being scammed.
El-Baahir Group is NOT a registered investment entity in Bahrain.
The telephone numbers of El-Baahir Group and Swift Middle East Insurance are also matching (except for the last three digits)
El-Baahir Group Telephone:+973 16 199 000 and Swift Middle East Insurance Telephone: (973)16199319
Investigations into Swift Middle East Insurance has revealed that this domain was registered in Toronto, Canada on 22nd Feb. 2012.
Domain name: SWIFTMIDDLEEAST.COM
Administrative Contact:
Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0130417756, [email protected]
96 Mowat Ave
Toronto, ON M6K 3M1, CANADA
+1.4165385457
Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 22-Feb-2012.
Record expires on 22-Feb-2013.
Record created on 22-Feb-2012.
If we put two and two together, we can safely conclude that there is a big ring of fraudsters running around to cheat people.

Hello millenniumconsultant,
Welcome to Scamwarners and thank you for posting the information as this will help others that may be dealing with this company. i am glad that your caught on to the scam before any money was lost.

Please post the email with the complete header that show the request for the fee to be paid. This information is need for proof of fraud and to have the site taken down.

Millenniumconsultant is quite right. This company is a fake, nothing but CROOKS.
Unfortunately, my partners and I found out too late. We lost a large sum of money to them in an "advance fee" scam for a business loan. Stay far, far away from Bahrain and anything to do with El Baahir Group. Nothing but a fraud.
Also, thay put up a copycat site under "Alamoudi Investments". This is also a fake company. They are using same contact names, phone number, address, etc. Not even trying to hide it.

Please post up some emails from this company. What has been posted up so far does not fit the criteria we used to determine a scam. It may be a con, but so far it does not fit the definition of Advanced Fee Fraud.


How did they get in contact with you?