G2G Investments: Recovery room? Scam? Or what?

G2G Investments Ltd is “an independent brokerage specialising in offering investment opportunities in gold, silver, and other alternative investments to private clients seeking to hold wealth in capital assured tangible assets”. At least that’s what it says on the company’s website.

Last year, the company wrote to several people who have been conned into buying carbon credits as investments to tell them that “your VCS/VER’s can now be sold on the Chinese platform”.

In a letter, signed by R. Cromwell, Commodity Analyst, G2G Investments explained that the company is “currently working with two regulated agencies in China in the buying and selling of VCS/VER’s [sic]”.

Cromwell wrote that the “shares” [sic] would sold on the Shenzhen Emission Exchange, which, she added, opened on 16 June 2014. The current price for “VCS/VER’s” [sic] is between £6 and £9 per “share [sic] depending on project type”.

G2G Investments’ charge is 8.5% commission, but this is “ONLY AFTER SALE”. Here’s a copy of one the letters that G2G Investments sent out:

A few obvious questions about G2G Investments’ offer spring to mind:

• What is G2G Investments’ source for the statement that international voluntary carbon credits can be traded on the Shenzhen Emissions Exchange?
• Did G2G Investments explain why the Chinese would pay up to £9 for something that is worth far less? (That’s assuming carbon offsets other than Chinese Certified Emission Reductions [CCERs] could be traded on the Shenzhen Emissions Exchange. Which they can’t.)
• How did G2G Investments get the addresses of people who had been conned into buying carbon credits as investments?

And in a comment on REDD-Monitor, I noted that the company was registered in December 2012. It has one director, Rozenna Yousuf, who appears to have no previous experience of carbon trading.

Neither do the previous directors of the company: Roseanna Cromwell, and Rozenna Cromwell.

My bet is that these three are the same person. On G2G Investment’s Facebook page, Cromwell calls herself Rozenna ‘Cookie Cromwell’ Yousuf. That is she did until the Facebook page was removed. (Here’s an archived copy.)

On her LinkedIn page, Roseanne Cromwell claims to have been CEO of G2G Investments since 2008 – four years before the company was registered with Companies House.

Here’s the company’s office, in the leafy north London suburb of Enfield:

There’s banner hanging off the building. It offers: “Serviced Offices, Conference Facilities, Office for the day.” Almost 100 companies are registered at this address.

The company’s website (which was registered anonymously in May 2013) isn’t exactly reassuring and gives no information about the firm. Products include gold, silver, palladium, platinum, loose diamonds.

In March 2015, Roseanne Cromwell wrote to REDD-Monitor.

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From: roseanne@g2ginvest.com
Date: 13 March 2015 at 14:18
Subject: Comments
To: reddmonitor@gmail.com

Dear Mr Lang,

I trust you are well.

I am writing to you because I feel that the comments you made about me on your site were unfair and defamatory.

I received information that was put out by Bloomberg in regards to a secondary market as platforms were being opened in China.

For you to make those comments were seriously damaging to me in a business dealing I had that had nothing to do with Carbon Credits.

Please find below:



Please remove this comment.

Many Thanks

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So G2G Investments’ source of information was Bloomberg. Perhaps it was this 2013 article: “Shenzhen Is First in China With June Start for Emissions Trading“. Or maybe it was another Bloomberg article. Who knows? But in any case, the China Shenzhen Emission Exchange opened on 17 June 2013 – not June 2014, as Cromwell wrote in her letter.

And (mis)reading an article on Bloomberg is a far cry from “working with two regulated agencies in China”, as Cromwell had claimed G2G Investments was doing.

Cromwell didn’t attempt to answer my other questions.

A few days after Cromwell’s letter arrived, David Vale left a couple of comments on REDD-Monitor about his experience with G2G Investments. “I have only paid a minimal amount of money (£200) to recoup my £50k investment,” he wrote. “I have a signed letter to the effect that there will be no further payments required.”

According to Vale’s comments, G2G Investments’ story has changed slightly. Now it’s a Californian Broker that’s going to buy the carbon credits. G2G Investments contacted him in July 2014, since when he’s handed over £200. “If it is a scam then it is not a very profitable one,” Vale wrote.

On Duedil, the G2G Investment’s status is listed as “Proposal to Strike Off”.