Heston Blumenthal restaurant amongst these focused in cloning rip-off

Restaurants owned by a number of the UK’s best-known cooks have been cloned as a part of an rising identification theft rip-off, BBC News has been instructed.

Heston Blumenthal, Yotam Ottolenghi and the Ritz have all been focused by fraudsters, who then open financial institution accounts and apply for loans.

More than 750 pretend companies have been registered, usually with misspelled names, within the final six weeks.

Companies House has begun an investigation.

The BBC has been given the primary detailed knowledge revealing the rip-off – which is inflicting a serious headache for people and companies – by fraud professional Graham Barrow. He says Companies House, the UK’s central registry of firms, is “not fit for purpose” and may perform extra checks.

For solely a small sum, scammers can register a enterprise on-line with Companies House – often inside 24 hours. After that:

“There’s been this rise of identity theft, and the requirement for all of us to provide bills, passports or a driving licence, even if you want to get a library ticket from your local council,” Mr Barrow says. “Companies House requires none of that.”

He mentioned it was “scandalous”, that scenario has been allowed to proceed “without any intervention whatsoever”.

Next month the physique will get new powers to deal with fraudulent registrations, however more durable checks will take longer to introduce.

Mr Blumenthal is amongst those that have been focused. An organization has been registered with the identify “Dinner By Heston Blumenthall” with an additional ‘l’.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s restaurant enterprise now additionally has a clone, “Ottolenghii Limited”, once more with an additional letter within the surname.

Mr Ottolenghi’s firm instructed the BBC: “Anyone who infringes our intellectual property or attempts to cause confusion with our brand or profit from our reputation, will have robust action taken against them.”

Even the restaurant on the well-known Ritz Hotel, which opened in 1906, has had its identification cloned.

Companies House holds paperwork for the enterprise courting again to 1896, however an organization known as Ritz Restaurant Limited was registered on 19 December 2023.

Alexis Gauthier, a Michelin-starred chef in Soho, central London, opened his French restaurant in 2010.

At the time he had not determined what to name his enterprise, so used his initials to call his firm “APJ Gauthier Limited”.

In mid-January he was astonished to obtain letters from a financial institution for a enterprise known as “Gauthier Soho Restaurant Limited”.

“It’s a better name than the one I chose,” he jokes.

“What was really surprising is they managed to create this company at the same address as my restaurant. It’s hard enough for us independent restaurants in central London to day in, day out, do the best we can do.

“We do not really want this on high of every thing else we’ve to take care of.”

Steven, 34, is a junior chef who has been fraudulently registered as the director of 39 restaurants. We have agreed not to use his surname to prevent further identity theft. When we tracked him down and showed him the list he was astonished.

“I’ve by no means been a director,” he says. “This is getting me upset. Someone’s making an attempt to destroy me. They’re doing it for enjoyable.”

Steven had received dozens of letters from Companies House about restaurant businesses, but had no idea why he was getting them, he says.

One of the restaurants which has been cloned knows Steven’s name well because it has received numerous calls for him from people purporting to work for Octopus Energy, insisting he is a director.

This appears to be another scam in which fraudsters try to charge companies for “updating their firm particulars at Companies House” – particulars that are false within the first place.

Octopus Energy says it does not cold-call customers.

Most daunting for Steven will be removing his name from the register. This process could involve filling in two complex forms and providing documentary evidence 39 times – to prove he is not associated with any of the companies linked to his name.

A small restaurant chain told us it had received bank cards in the name of a “clone firm director”, suggesting an account had been set up in the restaurant’s name.

This enables the scammers to ask for a business overdraft, which is withdrawn before they disappear.

For Steven, being the target of identity theft is unsettling, but it is a problem we all may end up paying for indirectly.

If criminals are able to clear out bank accounts set up for a fake company, the bank takes the hit, and may pass its losses on to customers.

“They are shedding tens of millions, a whole bunch of tens of millions,” Mr Barrow says.

The government and Companies House are aware of the problem.

But Mr Barrow believes it will be at least 18 months before the changes are fully introduced, and meanwhile he is tracking a string of other “clone firm” criminal networks targeting the UK from all over the world.

Companies House said it was sorry about the difficulties businesses are experiencing.

“In the long run we can be requiring firm administrators and individuals who file data to confirm their identification to make sure they’re who they are saying they’re,” a spokesperson mentioned.

“These adjustments will allow us to crack down on the usage of false addresses and different misuse of the register.”

Are you impacted by the problems raised on this story? Share your experiences by emailing [email protected].

Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:

If you are reading this page and can’t see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at [email protected]. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.