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The press release issued by the Insolvency Service on 30 April 2025.

Wholesaler accused of falsely inflating company credit rating and failing to pay for goods and services purchased on credit.

• Investigators feared SAK Wholesale Limited in Birmingham had become a ‘vehicle for fraud’
• They were unable to trace where funds for more than £2.5 million of payments came from
• Accounts were falsely inflated to boost company credit rating – then management disappeared, leaving creditors out of pocket

A Birmingham-based wholesaler has been shut down amid concerns it was a ‘vehicle for fraud’.

SAK Wholesale Limited, based on the Alexandra Trading Estate in Handsworth, was wound up at a hearing at the High Court in Manchester on Tuesday 29 April.

The court was told there were concerns about the accuracy of the company’s annual accounts and that profits may have been overstated, enabling the directors to apply for thousands of pounds of goods and services on credit which were never paid for.

The directors failed to co-operate with Insolvency Service investigators, who discovered the company’s registered office in Handsworth had been stripped and abandoned, despite its website still being operational.

David Hope, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “There are serious concerns about SAK Wholesale being used as a vehicle for fraud.

The company has seemingly been abandoned – but still owes over £270,000 to its creditors. Despite this, payments of over £2.5million were made from the company over a period of two months in 2022, but without proper records, we were unable to confirm where this money came from.

Accounts were not submitted for the last financial year, and the veracity of accounts submitted in previous years is in doubt.

Despite the directors of SAK Wholesale refusing to cooperate with our investigation, the records we uncovered showed the company operated with a real lack of transparency and had a history of improper behaviour.

This winding-up order will help protect the public and business community by ensuring SAK Wholesale can’t be used for future trading.

Investigators from the Insolvency Service found the company had used its good credit rating to secure thousands of pounds of goods and services from suppliers.

Investigators also discovered that wording on the company’s website had been lifted directly from a local competitor’s website.

A lack of banking records for SAK meant investigators were unable to identify legitimate trading, customers or company expenditure – with £2.5m of payments made from a company account between April and June 2022 essentially unaccounted for.

Alongside this, one of SAK’s company accounts received an unauthorised third-party payment of £200,000 which SAK was not entitled to. This transaction was refunded by the bank when the third party discovered the money had left its account.

The Official Receiver has been appointed as liquidator of SAK Wholesale Limited.

The press release issued by the Insolvency Service on 30 April 2025.

The Insolvency Service investigated complaints made to Action Fraud from people in Estonia, Mauritania, Iran, New Zealand, Poland and Romania.

• BTCMining Limited operated a cryptoasset mining business, but customers say they took payments for services they did not receive.
• Insolvency Service investigation was the result of complaints made to Action Fraud from people as far away as New Zealand.
• The company was subject to a winding up hearing at the High Court in Manchester on 29 April 2025.

A cryptoasset business registered in the UK has been shut down after people from multiple countries said they paid for crypto mining services but did not receive the promised financial returns and were unable to withdraw their assets.

BTCMining Limited claimed to operate a cryptoasset mining business, where customers would pay the company to mine crypto and receive any resulting income.

However, Action Fraud received complaints from people in Estonia, Mauritania, Iran, New Zealand, Poland and Romania claiming they did not receive the ‘mining’ service or their assets and had been subject to further payment demands.

The investigation also found that the company did not have a legitimate registered address anywhere in the UK.

BTCMining Limited was shut down following a hearing at the High Court in Manchester on 28 April 2025.

Insolvency Service Chief Investigator, David Usher said:

The fact that BTCMining Limited was attracting customers globally makes our intervention particularly important.

We acted on the complaints before their reach could have affected countless more individuals.

It’s vital that the public, both here in the UK and abroad, are protected from companies acting in this way.

Investigators were unable to reach BTCMining Limited using known email addresses and telephone numbers, and websites linked to the company were either inactive or gave no new contact details.

BTCMining Limited’s director, Stibich Martins Yhaicha Luzia, was the sole director of the company since its incorporation in January 2024, and payment for the company’s registration came from an account in China.

The 25-year-old, who is believed to be from Germany, could not be contacted by the Insolvency Service and did not cooperate with the investigation.

His contact address recorded at Companies House was also a residential address, whose occupiers had no knowledge of BTCMining Limited and had not given their permission to use it.

A review of the six complaints lodged with Action Fraud indicated that customers collectively lost more than £15,000 although investigators fear the actual amount could be much higher.

BTCMining Limited is not linked to any other company with a similar name or trading style.