On 27 July 2007, ART management was notified that there is a fraud currently circulating in francophone Africa in which our firm’s name has been occasionally used. Our company is a victim of this fraud, as it is our company's good reputation that has been damaged.

ATLANTIC RESEARCH TECHNOLOGIES, LLC (“ART”) is in no way involved with such frauds, and this company does not accept any claims of liability if a person has been victimized by the criminal who has victimized our company.

• Persons who have been victimized by this criminal should contact their local authorities, not ART.
• ART is in no position to assist any individual who responded to a criminal's internet solicitation.

We urge internet companies to monitor their systems for suspicious behavior related to suspect IP addresses and we urge wire transfer firms to demand stricter photo identification of recipients of money transfers. If these companies ignore these issues, their businesses will serve as passive assistants to these criminals. Can this kind of activity be significantly limited? Yes, but only if the internet companies and wire transfer firms care to take measures to safeguard their systems against abuse. We are trying to do whatever we can, but we have no control over these internet and financial service providers or over the criminals themselves. Today our name is being used, tomorrow it will be another company, and another, and another, unless internet companies and wire transfer firms uphold higher standards of security.

Our investigation has shown that the person committing this fraud is a resident of Cotonou, Benin. He uses a large variety of identities, titles, falsified company affiliations, stories, free email addresses and free websites that allow free postings. It is possible that the name that he has provided to one person in order to collect money wired to him is the name of a former victim, so

• never respond to any spam emails!
• never respond to such solicitations or any similar ones on websites!

He typically uses the IP addresses of 83.229.97.26 and 81.91.239.XXX, but others might be used.

This individual also attempts to commit frauds by offering financial help, scholarships, or even friendship and romance. He often claims to be a religious man, and he sometimes claims to be of one religion or another, in order to gain the confidence of potential victims.

He appears to be content to victimize anyone who believes his stories. He has frequented websites serving students in the Paris area, from the Comoro Islands, from Tunisia, as well as sub-Saharan Africa. He sometimes claims to be a student in Canada. It is possible that he applied to at least one university in Canada in 2005-2006 but was refused acceptance.

Our investigation has uncovered numerous details, which have been relayed to authorities in Montréal for their confirmation and action. Government officials in Cotonou are being consulted about this person and we shall continue to follow this case to its natural conclusion.

Headhunters are specifically trained to find people who are supposed to be difficult to find, and headhunters have a reputation for being aggressive in tracking down their targets.

It is imperative that you never respond to this person. If you have done so already, you should contact your local police authorities.

There is no employee of Atlantic Research Technologies, LLC “... Représentation de la zone afrique,” nor has there ever been such an employee. If a person by this or any other title who claims to be employed by our firm for the purpose of recruiting people to immigrate or for any other unauthorized purpose, authorities should be informed immediately to arrest that person for fraud.

The solicitation made by this person is in French, typically sent initially as SPAM email. The criminal also posts his solicitations on free-of-charge job posting websites, most commonly based in France.

As a public service, we are hereby notifying the public of the existence of such attempts at fraud.

According to one website that tracks such frauds, this scam is a version of one that has been used frequently with great variation. Even the French Red Cross has been a victim of this kind of fraud. The typical procedure is that the criminal copies some information from a company's website, falsifies that company’s identity, often providing some corporate address or phone number, false or not, and then they ask the person to email their CV to some non-company free email address. The common story is that the company is recruiting people in Africa for some job in Canada, France, or other countries. One can presume that the victim of the fraud will be asked for some payment to process their visa, review their CV, or for some other reason.

The entire act is criminal and there is no job and no service is provided. Our company is in no way connected with these solicitations.

If you are the victim of this fraud, report it immediately to your local police authority. Just as if someone stole your name and committed a crime pretending to be you, we are not responsible for this person’s crimes or attempts at such and we accept no liability to any victim of a criminal who has taken our good name and who has used it for their purposes.

We do not sanction any fraud of any kind using our name and/or copyrighted material, and we shall work to identify any person perpetrating such frauds or crimes in which our company's name is used.

NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC:

1. These solicitations are not sent by any employee, representative, partner, or affiliate, past or present, of Atlantic Research Technologies, LLC.

2. ART NEVER asks candidates for money or any payment of any kind, for any reason. If a person claiming to represent ART for any purpose asks you for payment, that person is NOT an employee of ART and that person is committing a fraud and should immediately be reported.

3. ART is only engaged as a headhunting service and we recruit senior level managers with very specific skill sets. Any letter written to a person from ART will be sent from an ART email address, and that person will be writing in English specifically about a client position, and there never will be any fee of any kind asked in order to refer the candidate to the employer.

4. In every country, ART performs according to exactly the same practices. There are no local representatives in any country that use different practices. Nobody at any time working for ART will ask you to pay them. Candidates should never pay any recruiter for any job. Employers pay ART recruiters, candidates never pay ART recruiters.

5. ART is paid ONLY by client-employers, and no candidate is ever asked to pay any fee of any kind for any reason. This has been our policy since our founding in 1987 and it always will remain so.

6. Most ART clients are specifically using us to find people who do not need to relocate from the city or country where they currently live. ART does not engage in “immigration recruitment.” Such frauds often are based on the proposition of “helping” a person move to a more affluent country, and frequently the specifics of the job are neither mentioned nor particularly of importance to the victim of the fraud. While some ART placements involve the recruitment of people for jobs in countries other than their residence, it is the employer and/or candidate who is involved in the processing of immigration documentation, not ART. We never are recruiting people for the purposes of immigration. As headhunters, our job is to seek managers with specific career experiences in specific industries for specific client job opportunities, and then to refer the candidates to an employer. Typically, we first identify the name of our client company to our candidates prior to presenting them to the client, and at that time we ask the candidate for their permission to make that referral.

7. ART does not place advertisements for client vacancies anywhere except on the ART website.

8. ART does not engage in spam. We do not maintain any mailing lists of candidates or employers. If a candidate is solicited about a position, either the person has previously sent us a resume or CV or typically s/he has been referred by another person as being potentially suitable for a specific client search. The average number of such solicitations to the average person totals one or less per year. If the person has never contacted ART, the recruiter making first contact will always write a letter in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. The person writing the letter will be the actual recruiter working on a specific search, using his or her true company email address, and if the recipient does not wish to be considered for the job or be contacted again, that person’s wishes will be fully complied with, upon notice to that recruiter.

9. ART, like most companies and individuals, is a frequent victim of email spoofing.  We do not have the capability of preventing most random attempts by spammers that steal or guess legitimate email addresses and then use those email addresses to disguise their true email addresses for sending SPAM. The best way for an individual to determine if an email from ART is real or not is simply to read it and see if there is any logic to the sending of such a letter. If, for example, a sales director at a semiconductor company receives an email discussing a job opportunity in semiconductor sales, it is possible that ART sent it. If, however, the same person received an email supposedly sent from an ART email address, but the letter is a solicitation for a loan, a rolex watch, etc., then the person can be 100% certain that that email was not sent by an ART recruiter. ART is in the business of placing serious people with serious companies. Nobody will ever be sent a frivolous solicitation from ART. If there is any doubt about an email from ART, write the recruiter sending it and you should receive a proper reply if the email is from ART.

10. Nobody at ART sends SPAM.