What’s left of Corsair Group has rallied around a recently signed agreement with Shell.

As outlined on Shell’s website;

September 2024

In Europe, Shell and Corsair sign supply agreement for pyrolysis oil from post-consumer plastic waste produced at Corsair’s chemical recycling facility in Jämsä, Finland. Shell will process the pyrolysis oil at its Chemicals Park in Moerdijk.

And as per an accompanying 6th September press-release on Corsair Group’s website;

Plastic waste recycling firm Corsair has signed an agreement to supply Shell Chemicals Europe B.V. with pyrolysis oil, a mixed plastic waste feedstock.

Under the agreement, Corsair, a company that converts daily household plastic waste into oil through pyrolysis, will deliver pyrolysis oil from its plastic waste chemical recycling facility in Jämsä, Finland, for Shell’s facility in Moerdijk, The Netherlands.

Corsair Group first announced “great progress” at its Kaipola facility in October 2023.

We are happy to inform you that the installation process of the first plastic waste chemical recycling unit at the Kaipola facility in Finland is moving along nicely.

In the meanwhile, piping works are taking a big step forward as well.

Stay tuned for further developments!

Corsair Group’s “Kaipola facility” operated as Kaipola Circular. As explained by a Finnish journalist who researched the matter;

In spring 2023, a company named Kaipola Circular announced its application for a pilot operation permit for plastic oil production in area of Kaipola, city of Jämsä, Finland.

At that time, my colleagues investigated the backgrounds of the company’s decision-makers and discovered that they are key figures in Corsair’s operations as well.

For instance, Andre Tops and Onno Ruiter, who hold positions as Corsair’s Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Europe, were on Kaipola Circular’s board.

In spring 2023, Andre Tops, representing Kaipola Circular, claimed to Yle that Corsair was not at all involved in Kaipola Circular’s operations in Finland.

However, after some time, Corsair began prominently promoting the Finnish project on its own channels. Subsequently, Kaipola Circular admitted that Corsair was involved in the project as a “collaborative partner.”

Now, less than two mo[n]ths ago, Kaipola Circular changed its name to Corsair Finland, and Corsair’s CEO, Jussi Saloranta, became the chairman of the board.

Two months prior to Corsair Group’s “great progress” update, Kaipola Recycling, a similarly named recycling company operating from the same Jämsä site, filed for bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy trustee in charge of the Kaipola Recycling’s bankruptcy sought to terminate proceedings in January 2024.

According to the liquidator, the company’s assets are not sufficient to cover the costs of the bankruptcy proceedings, and none of the company’s creditors are taking on the costs to cover them.

The costs of cleaning up the waste left behind by the company in the former factory area of ​​Kaipola are estimated to be over two million euros.

The company’s debt, excluding capital loans, is approximately seven million euros.

A month later, in February 2024, another company, Cindrigo, revealed plans to commence operations at the site.

The multinational renewable energy company Cindrigo has signed a letter of intent covering a 50-year lease right to the waste-to-energy plant in Jämsä Kaipola.

Cindrigo doesn’t appear to have anything to do with Corsair Group – putting a question mark on claimed Kaipola Circular’s/Corsair Finland’s operations.

Nonetheless, our cited Finnish journalist reports;

To our knowledge, Kaipola Recycling is not related to the operations of Kaipola Circular and Corsair. Kaipola Recycling eventually went bankrupt, leaving behind large waste piles, but we have no reason to believe that Corsair or Kaipola Circular have anything to do with the waste problem.

Based on current information, Corsair is not responsible for this waste.

Finnish authorities announced an ongoing “classified” investigation into Kaipola Recycling in May 2024.

The District Court of Central Finland has today ordered the assets of three people who were influential in Kaipola Recycling Oy to be seized. For all three suspects, a maximum of one million euros will be confiscated.

The district court confirms that two persons are suspected of gross dishonesty of the debtor and one of aiding and abetting gross dishonesty of the debtor.

The suspects are the company’s CEO, the chairman of the board, and an individual smallholder.

The crimes are suspected to have occurred in Jyväskylä from 1 February 2021 to 8 August 2023. The company is based in Jyväskylä.

Corsair Group announced its Jamsa facility in June 2023 – evidently at the tail end of Kaipola Recycling’s fraud.

According to [crime commissioner Toni] Peuha, the investigation is also currently incomplete.

It is not yet known whether there will be more investigation requests, who the final parties and witnesses will be.

As far as Corsair Finland’s recycling operations go, our Finnish journalist source states;

By far, according to local authorities, Kaipola Circular and Corsair have operated in compliance with regulations in Kaipola, Jämsä. Plastic oil production began in January and has continued since.

As per a May 2024 article from Yle, Kaipola Circular/Corsair Finland is operating on a trial basis.

Yle cite Timo Liimatainen as a Kaipola Circular Board Member.

Circa 2016, Liimatainen was scamming Finland residents as a OneCoin Ponzi promoter.

Questions that remain unanswered is why Corsair Finland was initially registered as Kaipola Circular, and why the initial denial.

I suspect the answer is tied to Corsair Group’s fraudulent investment scheme.

Since 2021 Corsair Group investors have been led to believe long promised Ponzi profits are just around the corner. To date however those profits haven’t materialized.

Notably, Corsair Group isn’t registered to offer securities in Finland. Securities in Finland are regulated by the Financial Supervisory Authority.

Outside of Finland, Corsair Group has not registered with financial regulators anywhere. And this has lead to legal troubles in Italy, Corsair Group’s primary source of new investment.

Corsair Group was launched by convicted fraudster Frank Ricketts as Cloud Horizon in early 2019.

Today Corsair Group is headed up by CEO Jussi Veikko Saloranta, an Italian national and associate of OneCoin Ponzi scammer Staffan Liback.

For some reason Kaipola Circular still has a two-page website up. There is no disclosure of the attached Corsair Group investment scheme or Saloranta.

As of September 2024, SimilarWeb tracked around five thousand monthly visits to Corsair Group’s website. 79% of Corsair Group’s monthly website traffic originates from Italy.

Italian authorities declared Corsair Group an illegal investment scheme in January 2022. A month later Italian authorities targeted local Corsair Group promoters.

As of October 2024, SimilarWeb was tracking ~2100 monthly visits to Corsair Group’s website. 94% of Corsair Group’s website traffic originates from Italy, followed by 6% from France.

Whether Shell is aware of Corsair Group committing securities fraud and certification as an illegal investment scheme in Italy is unclear.

 

Update 20th November 2024 – This article originally cited Kaipola Recycling as being associated with Corsair Group, with Kaipola Circular being unknown to us (owing to the Corsair Finland name-change).

With additional input from a Finnish journalist forwarded to us by a reader, we’ve edited the article to better reflect events at the Jamsa facility and associated criminal investigation.