Another 14 fake companies were searched in houses on a street in the fraud-hit suburb of Swansea. The total number of shell companies set up on Rhos Road in Hendros has reached 50 in recent weeks.

Last week we discovered that 36 fraudulent companies had recently been registered on a quiet, nondescript street of semi-detached houses. There were 18 different owners, 15 of whom indicated that their nationality was Chinese and almost all indicated that their main business activity was cattle and buffalo farming. One Chinese national declared his profession as “archbishop” and another as “disc jockey”, both claiming to be livestock companies, despite there being no agricultural land on Ross Road.

It was a worrying but far from unprecedented example of how criminals spent years setting up fake companies at UK addresses to help them launder money. Registering a company with Companies House costs just £12 and there is no need to prove legitimacy. For those who actually live at that address, fraud can destroy your credit score due to activity related to your home. Angry residents of Ross Road, who were bombarded with letters addressed to fake businesses, questioned why identity checks are not required to set up a business and criticized the lengthy process of removing their addresses.

We can now reveal that a further 14 shell companies have registered on Ross Road in the last two weeks. A man, posing as a 58-year-old resident of the British Virgin Islands, launched a company called Gongtongfazhan on Christmas Day. This was again in the category of “breeding other cattle and buffaloes”. Other Christmas additions on Ross Road included supposed livestock enterprises called Dalongshangchao and Qianyishuju.

Ross Road resident Julie Smith told us that since our previous story, six letters addressed to fictitious companies have arrived at her home. The 58-year-old said the scam was the talk of the streets and caused “a lot of stress” to neighbors. Her sister Beverly, who lives at the same address, added that it ruined her Christmas. “I asked Companies House if they could stop using our house in the future and they said there was nothing they could do,” said Beverley, who will have to fill out several forms to remove her address from companies registered in recent weeks.

READ NEXT: This year, drunk drivers appeared in court in Wales

DON’T MISS OUT: Masked man rapping about a ‘life of crime’ in the Welsh Valleys

The UK government has announced that from mid-2024 people will have to prove their identity to open a registered business. But there are questions about why it took so long. Our last article generated hundreds of comments, many of them from people whose own homes have been used in similar scams. Edwina Kerry, television presenter and former Minister for Health, shared our story online and wrote: “Registering a business is about to get harder. But it should be easier to unsubscribe. Owners will not have to prove that it is a scam. This will establish the most superficial controls.”

Dr Neil Hockley, professor of economics at Bangor University, also expressed concern, sharing our article on He will no doubt praise the fake archbishop. He ran bison farming businesses in suburban Swansea with the same fervor.

Financial crime expert Graham Barrow told us that the mass registration of “dumped companies” is a method used by criminal groups to open bank accounts. This allows them to launder money or take out loans that they have no intention of repaying. “This doesn’t mean the money will ever reach the UK; that the British company could bank in Singapore,” Barrow said. “UK companies are considered low-risk companies in most countries around the world, so they are quite easy to use to open business bank accounts.”

In 2011, Companies House was reformed to allow registration within 24 hours for a fee of £12. The number of registered companies has soared since then and, of the 775,000 registered last year, 155,000 (20%) are believed to be false. Barrow, who hosts the Dark Money Files podcast, told us that the “shocking” lack of checks is helping gangs open a series of bank accounts in different countries and distorting the flow of money to the point where it is impossible to track the your origin. You can read more about it here.

Companies House states that under current legislation, if the documents are lodged and the fee is paid, you have no option but to register the company. The expected law will allow Companies House to remove invalid addresses more quickly, as well as making identity checks mandatory. But Barrow said: “It will be a few years before that changes. The magnitude of change in the way we do things will require time, money, human resources, IT systems… The most important question is why didn’t this happen 20 years ago?

A Companies House spokesperson said: “We regret the difficulties these people are experiencing and are taking action where the law allows to help those affected. Companies House carries out checks to ensure documents are complete, but Companies House currently has limited powers to check or confirm the information given to it. The registrar has administrative authority to change the registered office address of a company if he considers that the address is being used without permission. This process of changing the company address can be started as soon as the application is received at Companies House. When the relevant measures of the Economic Crime and Business Transparency Act come into force, the powers of the registrar will be expanded to enable him to take proactive measures to remove fraudulent information from the register.”