Tag: Continental Wealth Trust

Spanish litigation: Quilter Ireland, SEB and Generali
Life offices who caused the death of victims and their life savings/pensions, will now face proceedings in the Spanish civil courts. Pension Life’s proceedings against the defendants are due to be launched before Christmas 2020. The defendants will be Quilter International (Ireland), SEB and Generali (which has changed its name to Utmost Wealth).

In the past ten years or so, the life offices – Quilter, SEB and Generali (shamefully promoted by International Adviser) – have freely given terms of business to unlicensed, unqualified, unscupulous “chiringuitos financieros”. These scammers – some with no license at all, and some with only a restricted insurance license – have put thousands of victims into pointless, expensive insurance bonds. The scammers’ sole motivation for the use of these insurance products is the commission paid by the providers: somewhere between 5% and 8% (depending on the term of the bond).

A bond is merely a “wrapper” (or container) and serves no purpose – other than a purported possible tax “efficiency” loophole. However, the so-called tax advantages are dubious at best outside the UK – and non-existent within a pension. In reality, any tax saved would be far outweighed by the high cost of the insurance bond.

The real problem with these insurance bonds has been the high-risk investments offered by the bond providers on their “platforms”. Many of the investments are highly toxic, only suitable for professional or sophisticated (or reckless) investors, and are chosen purely for the commissions they pay to the scammers.

Chiringuitos – such as the notorious Spanish firm Continental Wealth Management (which collapsed in 2017) – love insurance bonds; esoteric, unregulated investment funds; and structured notes. This passion comes not from any benefit provided to the victims, but from the huge commissions they (the scammers) can earn if their high-pressure sales techniques are effective.

One group of scammers – including Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions, Paul Clarke of AES International (now Roebuck Wealth), Darren Kirby and Jody Bell/Smart/Kirby/Pearson of Continental Wealth Management – is currently facing fraud charges in the Denia criminal court.

The fraud behind the insurance bond scams is, of course, facilitated and encouraged by the insurance companies themselves. One group of victims – who have lost hundreds of millions in risky, unsuitable investments such as LM, Axiom and Premier New Earth – has already issued proceedings in the Isle of Man civil court. Pension Life is preparing to issue another for the losses caused by other toxic funds and structured notes – also in the Isle of Man civil court.

Many of the culpable life offices base themselves on the tiny, dreary Isle of Man. It is a well-known tax haven for companies and individuals who are not prepared to pay their fair share of tax – and it also routinely harbours scams and scammers (due to limp regulation and ineffective governance). The failures of the IoM’s legal system – as part neither of the UK nor Europe – are well known and heavily exploited by institutions with nefarious intentions. Known, serial scammers such as Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh of Blackmore Group based their Blackmore Bond (promoted by Surge Group – which also promoted the collapsed London Capital & Finance “mini bond”) and their Blackmore Global fund there.

And – of course – Quilter, Friends Provident International and RL360 are all based on the Isle of Man (referred to by many as the “Isle of Scam”).

In Spain, virtually every insurance bond ever provided has been sold to the victims illegally (in contravention of the Spanish insurance regulations). Few victims are ever made aware of the serious drawbacks of these products:
- inflexibility of the fixed terms of up to ten years
- annual fees are based on the original premium (amount invested) – which means that when investment losses occur, the fees have an ever-increasing damaging effect on the remaining funds
- bond providers will accept investment instructions from unqualified, unlicensed, known scammers
- obviously low-risk, retail investors (such as those in a pension) will be invested in high-risk funds
- when losses start to appear, the bond providers do nothing to challenge the reckless, irresponsible conduct of the scammers with whom they have terms of business
- some victims, whose entire portfolio has been wiped out by the investment fraud facilitated by the bond providers, continue to be charged annual bond fees
- victims’ signatures on investment dealing instructions are frequently forged or copied
The Isle of Scam courts will be watched with intense interest by thousands of Quilter, FPI and RL360 victims (whose life savings have been wiped out) over the coming year. But, meanwhile, the Spanish courts will get to hear the cases against providers based in Ireland. All victims of Continental Wealth Management have been asked to obtain their documents for the litigation from Trafalgar International. Any who have not received an email from Pension Life can contact Trafalgar’s Tony Barnett direct on:

information@trafalgar-gmbh.com

The letter of authority which needs to be sent to Mr. Barnett in order to participate in the Spanish civil proceedings against Quilter International, SEB and Generali (Utmost Wealth) is as follows (victims can copy and paste this text into a document if necessary):

URGENT Letter of authority to Antony Barnett of Trafalgar International GmbH

Mainzer Landstrasse 49, 60329 Frankfurt am Main Germany

Dear Mr. Barnett

Letter of Authority to provide documents relating to pension, insurance bond and investments/losses

Please accept this as my letter of authority for you to discuss, communicate and deal with Angela Brooks of Pension Life who is acting as my Representative on the subject of my affairs in respect of my pension, investments and losses arising as a result of Continental Wealth Management S.L./Continental Wealth Trust S.L.

Name: …………………………………………………………………………Signature: …………………………………………………………

Address: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

……………………………………………………………………………………Passport Number: ……………………………………………..

Please provide the below copy documentation/information to Angela Brooks by return. These documents are required immediately for litigation in the Spanish Civil Court due to be issued next month. I intend to be a claimant in these proceedings against the life offices Quilter International Ireland, SEB and Generali (Utmost).
1. Pension transfer advice (Premier Pension Solutions or Global Financial Options)
2. Client contract, agreement and confirmation with CWM and Inter Alliance (For when CWM was with Inter Alliance)
3. Client contract, agreement and confirmation with CWM and Trafalgar (For when CWM was with Trafalgar International)
4. Fact find and risk profile
5. Insurance bond fees schedule
6. Insurance bond advisor transfer letter (from Inter Alliance to Trafalgar)
7. Insurance bond application
8. Insurance policy document
9. Latest valuation statement
10. Latest full transaction history from inception to date (or point of redemption)
11. Latest estimated bond surrender value
12. Copies of all investment dealing instructions since inception
13. Closing insurance bond statement (where bond has been surrendered)
14. Closing pension statement showing all charges and amount remitted (where pension has been redeemed)
15. Confirmation and full details as to how CWM’s insurance mediation/investment advice was licensed
16. Details of all fees and commissions charged by CWM, Inter Alliance, Globalnet and Trafalgar
17. Any correspondence relating to queries or complaints
18. Trafalgar’s professional indemnity insurance policy and schedule
19. In the case of a Quilter bond, confirmation as to whether it is Isle of Man or Ireland
October 29, 2020
Fraud and Disloyalty in Offshore Financial Services
Today, 7th April 2020, was supposed to have been the second part of the Continental Wealth Management criminal trial. Obviously, due to Coronavirus, the hearing has been postponed. For now. As soon as the pandemic is under control and life in the courts (and elsewhere) gets back to “normal”, the hearings will be rescheduled. This is obviously a disappointment to the victims who are waiting anxiously to see the outcome of the trial – but it is only a relatively minor setback in the grand scheme of things. We will get these defendants into court, and the judge will give directions as to how to deal with the crimes committed.

The crimes involved are:
1. Fraud
2. Disloyal administration
3. Falsification of commercial documentation
The second batch of defendants comprises:
- Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions and Premier Pension Transfers, IPTS (International Pension Transfer Specialists), AES International, Dorrixo Alliance and Marazion
- Paul Clarke of Continental Wealth Management, AES International and Roebuck Wealth
- Jody Smart (alias Jody Bell) of Continental Wealth Trust, Jody Bell Fashion, Grant A Wish charity and Mercurio Conpro
- Darren Kirby (partner of Jody Bell) of Continental Wealth Management and Continental Wealth Trust
The first batch of defendants were cross examined in the week of 24th February 2020 and comprised:
1. Patrick Kirby (brother of Darren Kirby)
2. Anthony Downs
3. Dean Stogsdill
4. Neil Hathaway (all of Continental Wealth Management)
When we first set out this case, we weren’t entirely sure the court would accept the charge of fraud – because it is difficult to prove as a complainant needs to establish intent. However, the court had no hesitation in accepting this charge, as well as the additional charges of disloyal administration and falsification of commercial documentation.

The evidence in the case is very clear and incontrovertible: seventeen lead complainants (out of more than 600) who all exhibit the exact same “symptoms”:
- Low to medium risk investors placed in inappropriate, high-risk investments
- Insurance bonds sold illegally
- Investments churned repeatedly
- No license to provide insurance or investment advice
- No qualifications to provide financial advice
- No adjustment to financial strategy when serious losses began to appear
It is tempting to think that perhaps Continental Wealth Management (which later became Continental Wealth Trust but still kept the original name) was an isolated case. But, sadly, that is not so. I have seen many examples (in Spain and other jurisdictions) of clients being placed into inappropriate investments, by other so-called advisers, which paid large, hidden commissions over the past six years. Stephen Ward was routinely flogging the EEA Life Settlements fund – putting some investors’ entire portfolios into this risky fund which paid up to 19% in commission. He was also flogging other high-risk funds such as Traded Life Policies, Axiom, Blackrock Gold and Aria – as well as selling bonds such as Skandia (OMI) illegally. And, naturally, Ward’s clients suffered crippling losses.

The above method, show-cased by Stephen Ward, has – of course – been rife in offshore financial services for years. It has made the advisers rich and the investors poor. In short, this is disloyalty at its worst: the adviser putting his own interests above those of his clients.

And that, in Spain and other European countries, is a criminal offence.

But Ward wasn’t alone: Paul Clarke did the same even after he left Continental Wealth Management and became an agent of AES International – exploiting the financial advisory market on the Costa Blanca as he decimated clients’ savings with more illegally-sold insurance bonds, structured notes and expensive, high-commission funds. Clarke regularly featured in whole-page spreads in Euro Weekly – spouting “expertise” and masquerading as a qualified, experienced financial adviser.

There are few firms in Spain – or indeed the rest of Europe and beyond – which do not rely heavily on the notorious insurance bond. The offshore market is dominated by the usual suspects: OMI (previously Skandia and now Quilter); Generali, SEB, RL360 and Investors Trust. And all these insurance companies encourage unregulated, unqualified advisors to sell these bonds illegally. There are few, if any, benefits to the consumer – and no insurance bond should ever be used inside a QROPS (unless there’s no lock-in and no commission).

I just Googled: “wealth management and financial advice Spain”. The top results came up as: Blacktower; Blevins Franks; Abbey Wealth; Masttro (a firm I’d never heard of before); Finance Spain (another firm I’d never heard of); Spectrum IFA Group; and Alexander Peter. I am not saying whether any of these firms are either good or bad – but I think it is safe to assume they are all selling insurance bonds illegally.

Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with an insurance bond. It is, after all, just a wrapper – or container for funds and investments. There are, arguably, some tax advantages in some jurisdictions – although they should never be used inside a QROPS.

The problem with an insurance bond – whether from OMI, SEB, Generali or RL360 – is that an investor is going to get one whether he wants or needs one or can afford one or not. The investor will get locked in for up to ten years and he won’t be aware that the adviser will get paid an 8% commission for selling the bond. This commission will get clawed back by the life office over the term of the bond.

Many investors are conned into believing that the bond provides some sort of protection. It doesn’t. Many investors are also conned into to thinking that the investments offered by the bond providers are “safe”. They aren’t necessarily – there may be some decent investments but there are also an awful lot of rubbish, expensive ones. But the biggest con of all is that the investor isn’t told that the annual bond charges (taken quarterly) will stay the same even if the portfolio value decreases. So, if the investor needs to withdraw some money from the bond, the charges will start to do some serious damage to the remaining fund. And if the investments fail – as many structured notes invariably do – and the portfolio value starts to decrease alarmingly – the bond charges will then erode what’s left very rapidly.

Some victims of serious mis-selling actually end up having the entire fund destroyed by irresponsible, fraudulent or disloyal investment advice by rogue advisers – and can still be paying the bond charges even after the entire portfolio has been destroyed.

The other half of the disloyalty and fraud by Continental Wealth Management (as well as some of the other well-known names in “wealth management”) is the practice of “churning”. This means that the same chunk of money is invested repeatedly to generate as much commission as possible – in as short a space of time as possible. This is easy to spot when looking at the bond statements (whether OMI/Quilter or RL360 or whatever):

“Buy £100k worth of rubbish (earn 6% commission); sell £100k worth of rubbish; buy another £100k worth of rubbish (earn another 6% commission); sell £100k worth of rubbish; buy”….and so on. This exercise can be repeated over and over again in any period – say one year – to mince two or three lots of commission out of the same sum of money. The investor may not notice – as long as his fund value isn’t falling too much – and, because the commissions are concealed, he may not realise he is being defrauded and that his adviser is committing a criminal offence by being “disloyal”.

The Continental Wealth Management case – being heard in the criminal court in Denia, Alicante – may not cure the ills of the offshore financial services industry overnight. But it will certainly send out a clear message to all financial advice firms that Spain, at least, will not tolerate such conduct. While British regulators, courts and police authorities are happy to leave fraudsters and scammers free to keep on operating and promoting financial scams, Spain is in the process of sending out a very clear message:
April 7, 2020
Pension Life – Pension File October 2019
The Kiwis were grass and England was a lawnmower. For a couple of hours we forgot Brexit and remembered our national pride.

In a Week that saw an inconclusive result in the UK v Europe match (yet again), at least England taught New Zealand how to play rugby.

And the battle against pension scams moved up a gear as the press reported on the first round in the victims v scammers tournament.

Olive Press journalist Joshua Parfitt reported on the first round of the criminal proceedings in Denia on the Costa not so Blanca. His surprisingly well-written article pulled no punches as it exposed the one million Euros that Continental Wealth Management boss Jody Smart Bell Kirby Pearson took out of the business in the two years before it collapsed in September 2017.

Former cleaner Jody claims she was only a “non-active” director of Continental Wealth and that the company was run by former boyfriend Darren Kirby. She also claims that her property company Mercurio Compro S.L. (which received 670k of the million) was just a front for Darren’s property dealings and that he used the company bank account because he didn’t have his own personal bank account.

Jody’s fashion business – Jody Bell – received 326k of the million. At least she hasn’t tried to claim that this was Darren’s business in reality (and that he had taken to designing frilly frocks between scamming 1,000 investors out of their life savings).

Whichever way you look at it, however, Jody paid herself 1 million Euros on top of her salary of 280,000 Euros. But this was only during the last two years of the life of doomed Continental Wealth – we still don’t know how many millions she paid herself prior to that – at the height of the structured note/insurance bond scam operated by Darren and his team.

There’s an interesting comment on the Olive Press article: English naivete is amazing given any chance for a quick return. Doesn’t anybody do due diligence when it comes to investment? This is like episodes on ” L’l Britain”.

Due diligence would, indeed, have revealed that Continental Wealth operated without a license and that the staff were not qualified.

Until 2015, Continental Wealth claimed to be an “agent” of a firm in Cyprus called Inter Alliance – and that this allowed the CWM scammers to use the Cyprus license. However, this was entirely untrue as Inter Alliance never had any license and had in fact been fined by the Cyprus regulator for falsely claiming to be licensed.

Interestingly, when I click on the Olive Press Article, an irritating advert for Abbey Wealth keeps popping up. The ad offers the same old same old scammers’ trick: “free pension review”. So, coming from the same “stable” as Jody and Darren’s Continental Wealth scam, let’s do our due diligence on Abbey Wealth.

According to the Abbey Wealth website, there are 17 “Senior Wealth” Managers. Most of these have no verifiable evidence of any qualifications, and quite a few are former mortgage brokers. Despite there being no investment license for the firm, several mention investments:

Ben Noifeld: “investment solutions”; Christian Holbrook: “providing highly-regulated, tax-efficient investment solutions”; Mark Smith: “portfolio management and investment planning”; Michael Chambers: “making clients comfortable with their investments”.

In Spain, all these “Senior Wealth Managers” are committing a criminal offence by promoting investment advice without a license”.

There’s one chap – Craig Allanson – who claims to be a Senior International Pensions Adviser, despite no evidence of any qualifications. And the Managing Partner – Victor France – has no evidence of any qualifications (as well as being ex Old Mutual – the kiss of death as far as most Continental Wealth victims are concerned).

However, there is one adviser who is indeed Chartered: Ian Boden. But why on earth would a man who states he “holds the highest level of qualification of Fellowship and Chartered Financial Planner status with the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII)” work for a firm with no investment license? He, of all people, should know better. He’s either desperate or has some dark skeleton lurking in his cupboard.

The final nail in the coffin is that the firm’s insurance license is from the Central Bank of Ireland. So there’s no protection for any of the clients if anything goes wrong. The Irish Ombudsman is hopeless, never upholds any victims’ complaints and is clearly bent towards Irish-licensed firms and against their victims. The Ombudsman’s determinations against SEB and OMI victims are clear evidence of this. And talking of SEB, Abbey’s “Senior Wealth Manager” Iwan Thomas (with no evidence of any qualifications) is ex SEB.

Abbey Wealth – will they altar their insurance bond salesmen’s approach to “wealth management”?

The comment on the Olive Press article by “Chas” does indeed raise the essential issue of due diligence. DD isn’t hard – it is just a question of knowing the questions to ask and understanding the answers. Finding out about regulation (license) is easy – you just start with the firm’s own website. The licensing bit is usually at the bottom on the website. Then you look at each of the advisers and check on the CII and CISI websites to see if they are listed on the register. Then, most important of all, do a Google search.

So here’s a prime example: QROPS provider STM is now trying to force members to use an IoM advisory firm called Creechurch Capital. STM is headed up by Alan Kentish (below) who is no stranger to handcuffs himself, and has a penchant for working with scammers.

A quick Google search reveals that a “whistleblower” had exposed Creechurch for falsifying client records. If you would still want to have this firm as your financial adviser, consider that it is based in the Isle of Man (where many scammers, and Old Mutual International, are based). The Isle of Man has a rubbish regulator and ombudsman and – like Ireland and Gibraltar – seems to positively encourage scams and scammers and treat victims as irrelevant.

You can tell a lot about a firm by the pictures on their website. In the case of Creechurch Capital, it is a bottle of wine. Does that suggest a client would need to be drunk to use Creechurch? Drunk or sober, any potential client should check out the people behind the firm.

Managing Director Jim Dolan claims to be qualified with the Chartered Institute of Securities and Insurance. And indeed he shows up on the CISI register as being Chartered FCSI – only not with Creechurch but with a firm in London called Sentient Capital. Nothing particularly suspicious about that, I suppose, but how can a person be Managing Director of two firms simultaneously? (I thought it was only women who can multi-task).

Miles Ashworth, Creechurch’s Head of Private Wealth, appears on the CISI register as claimed. And the rest of the senior management team seem to be a reasonable bunch. Also, the company was sold to Nayyar Group in March 2019. So somebody must have done their due diligence on the firm and paid good money for it.

But the question remains: why would a decent bunch of qualified and experienced financial services professionals be seen dead working on the Isle of Man along with so many dodgy, unregulated fund houses such as Blackmore Group and rogue life offices like Old Mutual International and Friends Provident?

And, even more important, why on earth would the guys at Creechurch want to be associated with STM? Don’t they know that STM has a history of working with scammers and that they facilitated the Trafalgar Multi-Asset Fund scam by investing all 400 victims’ pensions in XXXX XXXX’s own fund?

So back to the real World: rugby; Brexit; Halloween and the end of the decade looming. It really has been a dreadful decade for pension scams: thousands of people scammed out of £ billions. Let’s hope the scammers at Continental Wealth Management will all get hefty jail sentences and that this will force any advisory firms operating the same business model to turn away from the dark side.

So what exactly is the “dark side”? In a nutshell:
- Providing services without a license
- Having unqualified “advisers”
- Mis-using insurance bonds (purely for the commissions)
- Putting low-risk investors in high-risk investments (purely for the commissions)
HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL!

(don’t let the Dark Side get you!)
October 28, 2019
Jody Smart of CWM – courting justice

Jody Smart (or Bell or Kirby or whatever name she uses now) appeared in the Criminal Court in Denia on 1st October 2019. As one of the group of defendants in the fraud trial – including her former partner Darren Kirby (who didn’t turn up) – she testified about her involvement in the £100 million Continental Wealth Management/Trust (CWM) investment scam.

CWM – of which Jody was shareholder and sole director – collapsed at the end of September 2017.

The event was covered by journalist Joshua Parfitt of The Olive Press newspaper https://issuu.com/theolivepress/docs/online_issue_a/1?e=1186741/73089185 and was a relatively low key affair in the Denia Court Number 3 . Jody’s ex boyfriend Darren failed to show (no surprise there). The only entertainment on offer for anyone watching (and hoping for some sign that justice will be done) was her current beau, Franco Pearson, shouting “fucking scumbag” in the court waiting room.

This particular criminal case involves not just the investment scam itself, but also some previously-unknown anciliary scams involving bogus property transactions and false promises of shares in CWM in exchange for hard cash.

One of the complainants – Mark D – had handed over his final salary Shell pension (worth £415,000) plus a further £140,000 to Jody’s company: CWM. Mark was told he would be given a 5% shareholding in the company and that it was worth £10,000,000. Jody’s then boyfriend, Darren Kirby, had promised Mark the shares in return for £400,000 – and told him the money was going to be used to prop up the ailing company and also be invested in Jody’s fashion business. Mark D – who lost not just his pension but his house – developed severe depression and diabetes which he struggled to manage. After being left penniless by Jody and Darren’s CWM scam, he died alone in August 2019.

In the Denia court, Jody confirmed she was the sole director of Continental Wealth Trust (formerly Continental Wealth Management). The company held no license to provide either insurance or investment advice – and was selling life (death) bonds illegally; provided by rogue companies such as Old Mutual International, SEB and Generali. She stated it had not been possible to close the company because there had been so many debts. This comes as no surprise as Darren had paid £1.3 million to victims as compensation for investment losses, and had also pumped £500,000 into the Jody Bell fashion business. The court was also told that Jody had been paid 12,000 Euros a month by CWM.

In court, Jody denied holding any position in CWM and stated that she had no financial qualifications. But here I start to wonder whether, perhaps, something got lost in translation. In previous interviews, Jody had openly boasted about running CWM and also the sister operation Female Wealth Management. She claimed to have made £13 million out of financial services.

Jody also stated in the Denia Court that she had never had anything to do with the company or the clients (perhaps she was paid 12,000 Euros a month just to look glamorous in reception?). However, in a previous t.v. interview she had stated that her role was “to expand the company and see where we could go forward. Bring the best people on board to work for us“.

In the same interview, Jody had expanded on CWM’s activities: “We offer the whole package for expats. Advising on the investment of funds. We also do a pension release. There is a scheme where we can release your pension from the UK. Obviously, we’ve been very successful with that. Being in the climate that we’re in at the moment, there are a lot of people, unfortunately, who can’t pay their mortgages or their private school fees.

Its like saying “we’re gonna give you money and its not gonna cost you anyfink. Obviously, we can just change your life really”.

She was clearly referring to the Evergreen pension liberation scam in which more than 300 people certainly had their lives changed by losing their pensions and getting 50% loans from Stephen Ward’s Delaware-registered finance company Marazion. CWM did all the cold calling and administration for this scam – from which Ward earned 10% of the overall £10 million worth of pensions transferred into the bogus New Zealand-based QROPS run by Simon Swallow and Kenji Stevens.

Far from not costing the victims “anyfink”, 300 people are now being pursued for repayment of the Marazion loans and have lost the other 50% of their pensions left in Evergreen, which is now being wound up. They also face 55% tax charges on the 50% loans as unauthorised payments.

Jody was apparently (according to the court transcript) asked in court if she knew anything about the CWM business of which she was the sole director. She replied “no” and that Darren told her she could be a director along with him as she spoke Spanish, that he wanted to protect her and that it was going to be good for her.

So this leaves me wondering: was Jody lying in her recorded interviews which she used to promote CWM and her Jody Bell fashion business, or was she lying in court?

After testifying that everything had been Darren’s fault, that he had manipulated her and killed her mum’s chickens, Jody refused to answer any further questions.

So with no further answers from Jody Smart/Bell/Kirby/Pearson, we can only listen to the evidence provided by her in her video interviews. She is portrayed as the director of the CWM wealth management company and is worth an estimated £13m. She has a stunning house in Spain (currently up for sale for 760,000 Euros), a fleet of fast cars, a diamond ring as big as a door knob worth 39,000 Euros, and an impressive limited edition Jimmy Choo collection.

In one video interview, Jody started to describe how she had invested a lot of money in her fashion business and that after only six months the sales were “phenomenal”; that with her hard work and sheer determination……(here she pauses as a waiter brings a bottle of champagne)….

Full of bubbly, Jody goes on to state that she didn’t doubt herself – that her ambition (which came from a burning desire inside her) would help her succeed. Her conclusion was that she just knew she was “gonna reach the stars”.

Of course, victim Mark D had no idea how quickly he was going to “reach the stars”. Furthermore, there are hundreds of other CWM victims who are afraid that they too will meet a similar fate: dying – starving and penniless.

But I have faith in Jody – because she is very enthusiastic about her charitable works. She is on record, in one of her t.v. interviews, as saying:

“We done a lotta charity work. I’m lucky. There aren’t a lotta people as fortunate as what I am.”

Jody’s magnificent house is on the market for 760,000 Euros – and I get a sneaking feeling that she is flogging this pile of real estate full of glamorous furniture in order to help the victims of the CWM scam. In her t.v. interview she stated: “I like to help people. It’s in me.” So, hopefully, the 760,000 Euros will go towards helping some of the people who have been financially ruined by her company.

It is, of course, too late for Mark D. One of the things that killed him was the fact that he couldn’t afford to eat properly – and this is particularly dangerous for people who are suffering from diabetes. But there is hope for others – Jody has set up a facility to feed those who can’t afford to eat because her company scammed them out of their life savings: The Oceana Club near Calpe.

Rather more glamorous than the run of the mill soup kitchen, those who have lost their life savings and are in need of a hot meal will – I feel sure – be warmly welcomed at The Oceana Club. Hopefully Jody’s boyfriend Franco will embrace this charitable initiative just as warmly as he welcomes the CWM victims with a greeting rather more gentlemanly than “fucking scumbag”.

October 11, 2019
DEALING WITH STRESS WHEN SCAMMED OUT OF YOUR PENSION

DEALING WITH STRESS WHEN SCAMMED

OUT OF YOUR PENSION

Being scammed out of a big chunk of your pension once is bad enough. But TWICE is awful. Double pension scam victim Jessica M.J. talks about her experience and gives other victims advice about how to cope with the stress that results from being a pension scam victim.

Jessica was scammed by Continental Wealth Management – one of Pension Life’s top-ten worst scammers – into the Evergreen QROPS scheme. Continental Wealth Management was acting as the cold callers and lead generators to Stephen Ward’s firm Premier Pension Solutions. Evergreen was a New Zealand pension scheme which was being used for pension liberation fraud using Ward’s pension loan company, Marazion. Jessica did not get (and was not offered) a loan.

Jessica was brave and generous enough to share her own story – which, sadly, was so typical of hundreds of other cases. However, she was one of the few who were actually scammed twice by Continental Wealth Management. She spoke of her own feelings: “I was very angry. I felt betrayed, cheated.”

After losing a third of her pension, Jessica was then moved by Continental Wealth Management to a Malta QROPS and put into an Old Mutual International insurance bond (which she didn’t need and couldn’t afford – and only served to earn the scammers a hefty commission). By investing what was left of the fund in high-risk, professional-investor-only structured notes, half of what was left of Jessica’s pension was then destroyed. So she ended up losing two thirds of her hard-earned retirement savings.

Continental Wealth Management collapsed at the end of September 2017, leaving hundreds of victims with their pension funds in ruins and facing poverty in retirement. Old Mutual International, Generali and SEB – the life offices who allowed this devastation to happen and stood idly by while the structured notes destroyed the victims’ funds – have done nothing to compensate the victims for their losses.

Jessica has advised the public:

“There’s a lot of scammers out there – check ’em out!”

Sadly, if Jessica had known the questions to ask, the warning signs were there from the start. Continental Wealth Management was not licensed for investment advice. Few of the so-called advisers had any qualifications relevant to financial advice. The investments were professional-investor-only structured notes provided by RBC, Commerzbank, Nomura and Leonteq – among others. Continental Wealth Management used life bonds provided by Old Mutual International, Generali and SEB. These bonds served absolutely no purpose except to pay the scammers huge commissions. Dealing instructions had forged client signatures and the advisers lied about the losses when they were first reported claiming they were “only paper losses, and would recover”.

March 18, 2018
CONTINENTAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT BY JODY KIRBY (OR SMART OR BELL)

CONTINENTAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT BY JODY KIRBY (OR SMART OR BELL) – Now that Continental Wealth Management/Trust boss, Darren Kirby, is coming back to Spain to help sort out the mess, it is time to engage with his former partner, Jody, to find out what she has been doing to resolve the losses suffered by hundreds of victims.

Darren will, naturally, want to set the record straight, and help CWM victims get their money back after CWM “advisers” put their entire retirement savings into professional-investor-only structured notes. Many of these notes failed – costing victims £millions.

I have no doubt that Jody Kirby (or Smart or Bell – or whatever name she is using nowadays) will be keen to get involved. What exactly she has been doing to help the victims since September 2017 remains a closely guarded secret. However, I am sure she will announce it pretty soon now she knows that Darren Kirby is coming back.

Jody and Darren will, obviously, have a lot to talk about – and I am sure she will appreciate the importance of being frank with him. She will probably tell her current chap, Frank Pearson, to hop it while she and Darren debate the best way forward. Hopefully Frank will have the grace to duck out of the way so as not to distract Jody and Darren from concentrating on their responsibilities. After all, three is a crowd and Pearson doesn’t want to get stuck in the way like an unwanted duck a l’orange!

44-year old Jody has her own fashion business and has openly admitted to having made millions out of financial services. Once Frank is out of the way, she and Darren can put their heads together to formulate a plan to put that money to good use – in the interests of the victims of CWM.

A really smart way to approach this would be to write out a detailed account of everything that happened and who was responsible for each bit. I believe Darren Kirby has already made a start on this with the help of Alan Gorringe. This account will be especially helpful to us in the court proceedings.

As part of the frank account of the CWM disaster, all the victims will be keen to know what constructive ideas they both have for helping to put things right. There has been way too much silence on this subject from all the CWM advisers to date.

The victims will, no doubt, be pleased to see Darren and Jody committing to the rescue effort together. Jody was – and still is – sole director of Continental Wealth Trust which traded as Continental Wealth Management. A few years ago she described her role in the company on a television programme about “colourful” characters on the Costa Blanca. She confirmed that she was in finance and that she had contributed to the success of CWM saying that it had “gone global”. She stated that while their main office was in Javea, they had also expanded into Portugal, Ibiza, Turkey and France.

Jody explained in the interview that her role in the company was not as a (qualified) financial adviser, but to expand the company and bring the best people on board to work for her and her colleagues.

She goes on to say that CWM offers the “whole package for expats”, advising on the investment of funds (although the firm was never licensed to do so). She then explained how CWM offered “pension release” and detailed a scheme the firm offered whereby pensions could be transferred from the UK. She called this “just amazing” and said they had been very successful at doing this. She said the clients were told “we are going to give you money and it is not going to cost you anything – let’s just find out what you have got in your pension – it will only cost you a little bit of time and we can change your life”.

What she was actually describing was pension liberation fraud through a scheme called the Evergreen Retirement Trust – a QROPS in New Zealand. CWM’s “sister company”, Premier Pension Solutions, run by Stephen Ward, was the brains behind this scam (and CWM did the cold-calling and lead generation). 300 victims lost £10 milion in this scheme, and it cost them 10% of their transfer value in fees, plus 50% of their “loans” in Ward’s Marazion scheme. So not exactly the “nothing” that Jody claimed it would cost the victims.

Jody stated that they had “helped so many families” by releasing their pensions, and said she liked to help people because it was “in my nature”. I am sure the CWM victims will be pleased to hear that – and then to see some evidence of her – and Darren – “helping” them.

In another television interview, at the penthouse suite in a swanky five-star hotel overlooking Hyde Park, Jody explained how she had put half a million pounds into her fashion business. Over champagne, she told the interviewer she had ambition, drive and a burning desire in her.

Let us hope this passion translates into action and a commitment to helping the CWM victims who have lost much, most or – in some cases – all of their retirement savings.

February 28, 2018