Tag: Old Mutual International

  • Utmost Leonteq Fraud

    Utmost Leonteq Fraud

    In 2018, Old Mutual International (now Utmost International) announced it was suing structured note provider Leonteq. This was over a series of rogue structured notes with an extra layer of secret commission paid to scammers without Utmost International’s knowledge (allegedly). These notes had failed because they were so enormously high risk. The result was thousands of Utmost’s victims losing huge amounts of their pensions and life savings.

    On 28th May 2024, it was announced by QROPS trustees and Old Mutual (later renamed Quilter and now owned by Utmost International – formerly Generali) that Leonteq had settled out of court for the damages caused by these toxic structured notes to thousands of investors. 

    This announcement was reported by Momentum Pensions in Malta – among other QROPS trustees.  Some victims of offshore pension scams facilitated by Old Mutual, Generali, Utmost, RL360, SEB and other life offices will get some compensation for a small part of their huge losses.  

    Old Mutual International, the life office responsible for thousands of ruined lives in Spain and beyond, announced in 2018 that it was suing structured-note provider Leonteq.  There had been a series of extra toxic, high-risk notes for which Leonteq had been paying scammers additional commission “under the table” (i.e. not disclosed to Old Mutual).  In early 2023 the matter was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

    But this is no real compensation for the years of distress and poverty the many thousands of Utmost’s victims have gone through.  Lives have been ruined.  Families torn apart.  Homes lost.  Victims have died miserable, lonely deaths – leaving distraught and destitute spouses and partners.

    It had originally been reported that Old Mutual had been suing Leonteq for somewhere between £94 million and £200 million.  The basis for this action was undisclosed commissions – which is fraud.  But Utmost (along with all other life offices) had been quite happy to pay millions in undisclosed commissions to the vast array of scammers who sell their offshore bonds and toxic investments (such as structured notes).  But while Utmost had no problem with these outrageous commissions being kept secret from the victims, they objected to the Leonteq commissions being hidden from Utmost themselves.

    Momentum is taking further advice on the legalities and tax implications of paying this compensation to pension scheme members.  Presumably, STM, SEB and other QROPS providers who had facilitated this fraud will be doing likewise.

    While this is indeed welcome news for the thousands of pension savers whose lives were ruined by these failed investments, it does leave many unanswered questions:

    • Why did the life offices such as Utmost give terms of business to the scammers in the first place?
    • Why didn’t Utmost ensure the scammers disclosed the commissions on the insurance bonds and also on the investments?
    • Why did Utmost allow retail investors’ money to be invested in professional-investor-only, high-risk investments?
    • Will Utmost be paying compensation for all the other structured notes which were toxic and which failed?

    Utmost’s answer to these questions would, obviously, be: “We didn’t give investment advice”.  And this is the excuse they will make when they testify in the Isle of Man court – where Signature Litigation and Forsters are suing them and Friends Provident International for £400 million for this very crime.

    Utmost and all the other life offices did not – indeed – give investment advice.  However, they did act on the investment instructions (often forged) of unlicensed scammers – and reported on the resulting crippling losses for thousands of policyholders.  Despite being fully aware of these losses, Utmost continued accepting investment instructions (often with forged investor signatures) for years – paying the same undisclosed commissions to the same scammers, with the same resulting losses. 

    In fact, Utmost International continues with this fraud to this very day. And now there is evidence that they are paying even higher undisclosed commissions to the very same scammers who have already ruined so many lives for well over a dozen years.

    Utmost had not been the only life office involved in the Leonteq structured note scandal.  Friends Provident International, Generali, Investors Trust, Julius Baer, RL360 and SEB had all been similarly culpable.  But it looks like Utmost had been the only one to sue Leonteq for this fraud. 

    And let us be clear, undisclosed commission does constitute fraud – irrespective of whether it is committed by the scammers, Leonteq or Utmost International.

    There had been many scammers involved in the receipt of the Leonteq extra (under-the-table) commissions.  Known as “Chiringuitos Financieros” by the Spanish regulator, the CNMV, they included Finsbury Financial, Chase Buchanan, Square Mile (later known as Planet Pensions) and – of course – the notorious Continental Wealth Management in Spain.

    Perhaps the biggest question which remains unanswered is why the regulator – the Isle of Man Financial Services Authority – has done nothing to sanction the likes of Quilter, Utmost, Friends Provident and RL360?  The regulator’s Chair – Lillian Boyle – has been in place since 2015 so she must have known perfectly well how much fraud had been facilitated by the life offices.  

    Boyle had previously been the CEO, Director and Chair of Isle of Man international life companies and their overseas subsidiaries and branches.  So she must have had intimate knowledge of how the secret-commission fraud worked.  And yet she has stayed silent.  

    The IoM FSA’s Chief Executive is Bettina Roth.  She has worked for the regulator in the Cayman Islands (that well-known jurisdiction for dodgy financial dealings – including the Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund investment scam).  And yet she too has stayed silent.  Both Boyle and Roth must know that the Isle of Man is under the spotlight with nearly half a billion pounds’ worth of claims against the death offices for fraud (and a billion more in the pipeline).

    The IoMFSA’s own website claims it is “responsible for protecting consumers, reducing financial crime and maintaining confidence in the financial services sector through strong prudential supervision”. And yet the very financial crime that Old Mutual and Utmost International have been committing for more than a dozen years – under the very nose of the regulator – is ignored.

    It is indeed great news that Leonteq has paid up. But, did that payment include all the extra-commission paid on the toxic structured notes?  And any interest, damages and compensation for the losses and the fraud?  And what about the other structured note providers whose toxic products caused just as much (and sometimes more) damage to thousands of victims?  

    Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura and Commerzbank also listed their toxic products on Utmost Internationals’ investment platforms.  A multitude of scammers (who had terms of business with the life offices) used these to ruin their low-risk, retail victims.  Did any of these big financial institutions care that they were facilitating financial crime on a massive scale – and ruining thousands of lives? 

    With the IoM regulator silent, this massive international fraud continues to this day.  The life offices are still paying the scammers huge undisclosed commissions for both the insurance bonds and the investments listed on their platforms.  In fact, the bond commission can be as high as 9% – for a product that nobody needs and which only serves to facilitate fraud against the policyholders.

    In 2018, Utmost International commissioned a report on the Leonteq structured note scam from https://www.futurevc.co.uk/ – a consultancy firm which specialised in structured products systems and research analytics.  Their Managing Director, T. M. Mortimer, analysed a test sample of 100 notes and reported the below fees and commission figures:

    Fee LevelNumber of Occurrences
    Less than 6%9
    6% – 8%4
    8% – 12%21
    12% – 16%26
    16% – 20%14
    20% – 24%12
    24% – 28%6
    28% or more8
    100

    Mortimer concluded: “In my view a total fee of 8% taken between Leonteq and its associates would be reasonable.  This corresponds to the entries in the first two rows in the table.”  

    This means that only 13% were reasonably (i.e. viably) priced.  The remaining 87% were vastly overpriced with extortionate commissions paid to the scammers.  

    The insurance bond scam continues to flourish in all the typical British expat destinations – from Spain and Portugal to Thailand and the Middle East.  Life offices such as Utmost International and RL360 continue to fuel the global undisclosed commission fraud machine – with scammers posing as financial advisers and selling over-priced products rather than proper financial advice.  

    Leonteq is still doing a roaring trade – thanks to the offshore scammers and the life offices. The secret-commission fraud still flourishes unhindered. Utmost International and Friends Provident International are throwing millions at defending the Signature and Forsters actions brought by thousands of victims. The regulators remain silent.

    Every day more victims are created.  How many more victims need to be ruined before something is done to put a stop to this huge-scale offshore financial crime? Leonteq may have paid up – but now the life offices themselves (including Utmost International, RL360 and SEB) need to pay up too.

  • TOP 3 WORST LIFE OFFICES

    TOP 3 WORST LIFE OFFICES

    For over a decade, life offices (more accurately known as “death” offices) have been the centre of millions of pounds’ worth of destroyed pensions. So here we are going to name the top 3 worst life offices…

    These are just some of the things they’ve been up to:

    • Collaborating with scammers: unregulated, rogue firms posing as “advisory” firms
    • Giving terms of business to firms run by people with criminal records for embezzlement, fraud, theft and proceeds of crime (as well as murderers, drug dealers and prostitutes)
    • Paying hidden commissions to unlicensed, unqualified advisers with a long track record of scamming
    • Accepting obviously forged investment dealing instructions from the scammers
    • Reporting on huge losses in pension portfolios without warning the victims not to use the scammers responsible any longer
    • Continuing to charge disproportionate fees even after the loss of half or more of the pension.  (There are, in fact, some victims whose entire portfolios have been destroyed – but the death offices keep on applying their charges long after there is nothing left)
    • Offering high risk, toxic investments paying huge commissions to unqualified advisers and scammers on their investment platforms
    • Failing to disclose the secret commissions paid to the scammers 
    • Failing to treat investors as “retail” or unsophisticated investors
    • Failing to obtain confirmation from the victims that they understand the risks involved in both the insurance bonds and the toxic investments – which are only suitable for professional investors

    In fact, much of what these death offices have been up to is outright fraud.  The public needs to be warned.  The existing victims are suffering terribly – dealing with poverty and extreme distress.  Some of them are dying; some of them have died – killed by the death offices’ and the scammers they do business with.

    The most important thing of all is to try to prevent further victims.  But this is difficult because so many scammers are still aggressively selling their victims these toxic, unnecessary and expensive death bonds.  Also known as “portfolio bonds”, “offshore bonds” and “wrappers”, these products pay the scammers huge commissions which are hidden from the victims.  

    So who are the three worst offenders:

    David Kneeshaw - CEO of FPI and RL360
    David Kneeshaw

    Number 3. Friends Provident International – based in the Isle of Man and run by David Kneeshaw  – Executive Director and Group Chief Executive Officer.  Kneeshaw also runs RL360 – another death office – which bought Friends Provident International a couple of years ago for a quarter of a billion pounds.  Friends Provident International has a long history of investing its victims’ life savings and pensions in toxic, risky funds such as Axiom Legal Financing, LM Managed Performance, Premier New Earth,  Premier Eco Resources, and Kijani .  These investments were high risk and unregulated as well as only suitable for sophisticated or professional investors.

    Paul Thomson - CEO of Generali/Utmost
    Paul Thompson

    Number 2. Generali (now known as Utmost International) – based in Guernsey and with the head office in London.  Utmost has terms of business with the worst of the scammers in the advisory community – paying the illegal, secret and abusive commissions and featuring the worst of the highest-risk investments (including structured notes with a risk to the investor of total loss).  Run by Paul Thompson – who claims to have over 30 years of industry experience as an investment banker.  Generali – or Utmost – has a track record even worse than Friends Provident International’s.  The same secret commissions are paid to the same scammers – with the same result – crippling losses, poverty, misery – and even death for the victims.

    Peter Kenny - ex chief exec of Quilter/Old Mutual International
    Peter Kenny

    Number 1. Old Mutual International (now known as Quilter International) – Based in the Isle of Man and the Republic of Ireland, this death office used to be run by Peter Kenny who was a former Isle of Man regulator.  But being a former regulator didn’t stop Kenny from doing business with the worst of the unlicensed pension scammers and allowing them to forge signatures on investment dealing instructions.  Being a former regulator didn’t stop Kenny from paying out millions in illegal commissions to the dross of the offshore financial services community – for illegally-sold death bonds and unregulated investments and structured notes.  Quilter International was sold to Utmost International last year (2021) for nearly half a billion pounds.  Because there’s money in misery; there are fortunes to be made out of trading with criminals; there are huge profits to be made out of contravening pretty much all of the EU regulations.

    All of the worst three life/death offices are still doing a roaring trade.  Business has returned to pre-pandemic levels.  Europe is their biggest market – with many of their victims based in Spain, Italy, Germany and other expat countries.  

    International Adviser – the advertising and marketing rag for the death offices – reported last week that not only was business booming for the death offices, but was now exceeding pre-pandemic levels.  In 2020 they wrote £58 billion worth of business.  And in 2021 it was £68 billion.

    But these huge numbers mean nothing to the victims who have lost their homes, their marriages, their retirement futures.  Three quarters of a billion pounds may mean nothing to the likes of David Kneeshaw, Paul Thompson and Peter Kenny.  Sometimes fifty grand can mean the difference between life and death for a victim of the death offices.  With Friends Provident, Utmost and Quilter International likely to do £78 billion worth of business in 2023, there will be even more misery, destitution, and death for the victims.  And the scammers will already be counting their future profits from the illegal commissions.

  • Fraud Trial Against Pension Scammers in Spain

    Fraud Trial Against Pension Scammers in Spain

    The Spanish criminal trial of so-called “financial advisers” in Denia has exposed the widespread fraud routinely committed in offshore financial services for over a decade.

    This particular stage of this particular trial may be directed at just eight members of Continental Wealth Management and Premier Pension Solutions. For now. But the case – brought by Pension Life – needs to be extended to all parties who have committed similar offences in offshore financial services.

    Spain is the second-largest expat jurisdiction in the world – after Australia. More than three quarters of a million British expats have settled in the Spanish sunshine. That’s over half the total in the whole of Australia. And these Spanish-resident expats are sitting targets for pension scammers.

    It is not unusual for Brits to be suspicious of foreigners in any country. Expats typically veer towards their own countrymen. They are notorious for being suspicious of foreign food and customs. Hence, the depressing fact that it is British scammers who relieve British victims of their pensions and life savings.

    And this is why so many British expats – especially in Spain – fall prey to bogus “financial advisers” flogging bogus life assurance policies provided by bogus insurance companies – like Quilter International headed up by Peter Kenny.

    The facts of this criminal case are indisputable. One thousand victims were scammed by Continental Wealth Management. Between 2009 and 2017, these victims lost many millions of pounds’ worth of pensions and life savings. And much of this was facilitated by Quilter International (formerly Old Mutual International).

    So how were these losses caused? What on earth went wrong? Financial services – in any country – should be a safe industry which investors can rely on. Depend on. Why have so many expats – not just the Continental Wealth Management victims – lost so much money?

    Who and what is to blame for the loss of hundreds of millions of pounds?

    The short version of the answer is: “COMMISSIONS”. Offshore advisers get rich by selling products for commissions. What they don’t sell is independent financial advice. Proper independent advice (provided by a correctly and properly qualified and licensed adviser) is about recommending an appropriate investment strategy which is in the best interests of the client. And, of course, charging a reasonable and commercially-viable fee for such advice.

    But that rarely – if ever – happens in offshore, expat jurisdictions. What is cleverly presented as “advice” is generally just a dishonest ploy to sell a client unsuitable products which they don’t need and that will make the salesman the most commission.

    The orchestrators, facilitators and architects of all this fraud are the “life offices”. In practice and in reality, these companies are more about death than life. Their business is about destroying life savings and pensions – while enriching the pockets of fraudsters.

    There are various ways to combat this widespread fraud facilitated by the life offices:

    • Bring criminal proceedings against ALL those who have defrauded their clients – from bogus, unlicensed advisory firms to the life offices themselves
    • Ensure all so-called advisory firms (sometimes calling themselves “wealth managers”) are correctly licensed in the jurisdiction where they provide advice
    • Make it mandatory for all advisers to be properly qualified to provide financial advice
    • Ban all firms without an investment license from providing investment advice
    • Educate consumers to only use advisory firms which openly disclose their professional indemnity insurance on their website

    The bald truth is that if the life offices – such as Quilter International, Friends Provident International and RL360 – were closed down, this widespread fraud would stop.

    The only way this fraud keeps going so vigorously and relentlessly, is the terms of business given by the life offices to the scammers. And, of course, the fat commissions the life offices pay to them. As well as the toxic, risky, high-commission-paying investments the life offices put on their “platforms” for the scammers to use (and abuse).

    You only have to look at Continental Wealth Management to see how quickly a scamming firm will collapse once life offices withdraw terms of business. The life offices are the life blood of scams and scammers.

    Without the facilitation of the “death” offices (Quilter International, Generali, SEB etc.) frauds such as Continental Wealth Management could not have taken place. The blood of all those who have died wretched, lonely deaths – and those who are suicidal – is squarely on the hands of Peter Kenny and his various cronies.

    The bank statements of Continental Wealth Management show the repeated amounts of fat commissions paid by Quilter International, Generali and SEB. And these amounts were paid willingly and cheerfully in the full knowledge that every payment meant more lives damaged; more funds destroyed; more miserable deaths.

    Quilter and their associates had reported on the victims’ losses for a decade; produced valuations and transaction histories evidencing the repeated, relentless fraud. And yet Quilter (and the other death offices) did nothing – just kept on and on facilitating the same fraud: repeat, repeat, repeat.

    While the “advisers” from Continental Wealth Management and Premier Pension Solutions stand trial – the hundreds of victims have to listen to the defendants’ offensive denials and excuses. But, worst of all, the distressed and impoverished victims know that the life (death) offices should also be on trial – standing shoulder to shoulder with the scammers themselves.

    The cause of the investment losses in the Continental Wealth Management case was almost exclusively toxic, high-risk (and high-commission) structured notes. These are complex investment instruments called “derivatives” and should only ever be used for professional or sophisticated investors. They are certainly completely unsuitable for ordinary people (who are classed as retail investors) or for pension schemes.

    High-risk structured notes are big business for the death offices. Quilter International (formerly Old Mutual International) has historically onboarded over 100 new structured products per month. In the case of the Continental Wealth Management fraud, it was the structured notes – from Leonteq, Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada and Nomura – which caused the terrible investment losses. These toxic, high-commission investment products – so beloved by the scammers because of the high commissions – were responsible for the destruction of millions of pounds’ worth of pensions and life savings.

    Quilter International knew perfectly well that these toxic products – totally unsuitable for retail investors – paid 8% commission to the scammers and a further 8% to 10% to the “arrangers”. They knew perfectly well – and admitted internally to their “asset review committee” – that these products were risky and “not good value”. But they still allowed the scammers (to whom they gave terms of business) to keep selling them.

    Quilter has also admitted that they had 2,047 structured products in total, and that the average holding per product was £243,654.03; that the smallest holding was £67.54 and the largest holding was £5,350,833.60. Quilter was concerned that there was a reputational risk to Quilter for allowing these structured products to be held within their offshore bonds. They also acknowledged that these products carried excessive commissions and were causing “suboptimal customer outcomes”. However, their concern for their own “reputational risk” did not extend to concern for their victims.

    Quilter has tried to wriggle out of culpability for the victims’ losses by claiming that investment product “suitability” is the responsibility of advisers. And that these so-called advisers are participating in a “race to the bottom”.

    However, the advisers are mostly scammers to whom Quilter has cheerfully given terms of business. And they are winning the race to the bottom by several lengths. If Quilter withdrew terms of business from all the scammers, the race wouldn’t even take place at all. In fact, all Quilter would have to do would be to ensure that all advisers are qualified and licensed – and that investors’ risk profiles are correctly respected – and the fraud would stop instantly.

    But until Quilter and all the other death offices are put on trial for fraud themselves, this crime is going to continue. And victims are going to keep losing their pensions and life savings – and dying in abject poverty.

    As an interesting post script, Quilter have posted a warning about scams on the internet. Their disingenuous claim that “Your security is our priority, so we have reacted quickly to help you and the financial advisers we work with to spot fraudsters” is ironic and cynical. Quilter themselves routinely work with fraudsters who pose as financial advisers – and who have no license or qualifications to provide financial advice.

  • Armed Against Pension Scams in Spain

    Armed Against Pension Scams in Spain

    Knowledge is power in the fight against pension scams in Spain and all British expat jurisdictions. Be warned! Be armed!

    In the past decade, millions of pounds of pensions and life savings have been destroyed in Spain. Much of this has involved insurance bonds (OMI, SEB and Generali) – as well as all other popular expat countries. Only by benefitting from lessons learned so painfully by those who’ve already been scammed, can new potential victims arm themselves against the scammers.

    Pension scams always start with a so-called “financial adviser” or “wealth manager” or “retirement consultant”. Sadly, it is almost always British “advisers” which scam British expats.

    Potential victims need to understand what to look out for – and avoid. Here are the essential “must haves” for proper, professional financial advisers (in other words people who sell advice, not products):

    • LICENCE – The firm must be licensed – both for insurance and for investment.
    • QUALIFICATIONS – The adviser must be qualified – and a link to proof of the qualification clearly visible on the firm’s website.
    • LEGACY – There must be no legacy of previous scamming within the firm.
    • INSURANCE – There must be a professional indemnity insurance policy in place.
    • NETWORK – If the firm is an agent of a network, there must be an up to date copy of the agency agreement freely available.
    • INSURANCE BONDS – The firm must not sell insurance bonds illegally.
    • UNREGULATED FUNDS AND STRUCTURED NOTES – The firm must not invest clients’ funds in unregulated or esoteric funds, or structured notes.
    • COMPLIANCE – There must be a proper compliance function in place.
    • MANAGEMENT AND TEAM – All members of the team must be clearly visible on the website – along with details of who is in charge and responsible for the firm’s activities and compliance.
    • COMMISSION POLICY – The firm’s policy on undisclosed commissions must be clearly visible.

    When I Googled the term: “Financial Adviser Spain” just now, the top results that came up for me were:

    Blacktower Wealth Management

    Blevins Franks

    Finance Spain – Patrick Macdonald

    Spectrum IFA

    Chorus Financial

    Abbey Wealth

    Alexander Peter

    Axis Consultants

    Logic Financial Consultants

    Harrison Brook

    Seagate Wealth

    When I changed the search term to: “Pension Advisor Spain” or “Wealth Advisor Spain” I also got the following:

    • deVere Spain
    • Mathstone Financial Management
    • Pennick Blackwell
    • SJB Global
    • United Advisers Group
    • Indalo Partners
    • Trafalgar-International
    • Fiduciary Wealth Management

    And one firm which won’t come up at all, no matter how hard you search, is:

    • Roebuck Wealth – run by Paul Clarke

    Plus one which only comes up if you know what to search for:

    • Callaghan Financial Services

    And, of course, the two which have closed down:

    • Continental Wealth Trust – aka Continental Wealth Management
    • Premier Pension Solutions

    So let’s take a look at some of these firms to see what we can learn from their websites and see if there are any warning signs for potential victims:

    Blacktower Wealth Management – Always look at the bottom of a firm’s website to read the small print and see how the firm is licensed. Blacktower is licensed by the Gibraltar Financial services Commission for both insurance mediation and investment advice. Why Gibraltar? Why not Spain? Gibraltar has a long history of facilitating and licensing scams and scammers and the Commission even employs one itself. The website claims to have “Consultants throughout our offices in Europe” – and this worries me. What is a “consultant”? Why not talk about advice, not consultancy?

    Looking at the directors and “international financial advisers” of the firm, there are quite a few. Associate Director Tim Govaerts claims to be qualified with the Chartered Institute of Insurers up to Level 3. But the CII register says they’ve never heard of him. Richard Mills claims to be qualified with both the CII and the CISI, but both registers say they’ve never heard of him. Quentin Sellar claims to be qualified with both the CII and the CISI, but only the latter has heard of him. Clifford Knezovich also claims to be qualified with the CISI but does not appear on the register. Lucia Melgarejo is another member of the team who also claims to be qualified. I met her a few years ago, when a colleague of hers had cold called me, and she told me that she was too busy selling to get qualified.

    The member of the Blacktower team which worries me the most is Terry Tunmore – as he was one of the scammers at Stephen Ward’s Premier Pension Solutions. Tunmore certainly soils the reputation of this firm, and should not be employed by any firm holding itself out to be professional and to have integrity.

    Under the Licensing section of the website, the firm is immediately getting potential clients warmed up to insurance bonds and “wrappers” – and states that it has permission to recommend them and provide investment advice on the underlying portfolios. This should worry any potential client – and ring loud alarm bells – as this indicates a clear intention to use bond providers such as Quilter, SEB, Generali or RL360 – and earn hidden commissions. These products are deemed to be invalid under Spanish law, and are routinely sold illegally in Spain.

    Blacktower’s website makes no mention (that I can find) of compliance or their professional indemnity insurance policy. It also worries me that Blacktower has so many “agents” – and without hard evidence of a robust compliance function, I think there is a risk that some of these agents could well be acting as unsupervised “feral” salesmen, rather than bona fide financial advisers.

    Blevins Franks – Well-known firm with offices in Spain, and other European countries. The team in Spain all have titles such as Partner, Private Client Manager or Regional Manager – and there is no mention of any of them being genuine financial advisers. In Spain, Partners Christopher McCann, Brett Hanson, Paul Montague, Andrew Southgate, Henry Rutherford and David Bowern all claim to be qualified with the London Institute of Banking & Finance, but none of them appears on the member register. Steven Langford claims to be CII qualified but does not appear on the register. With so many members of the team claiming – falsely – to be qualified, this should ring loud alarm bells with any potential victims. We know that Blevins Franks routinely puts all clients into a Lombard insurance bond – which means they are committing a criminal offence in Spain.

    Insurance bonds are illegal and invalid for the purpose of holding investments in Spain, and the usual manner of selling them is also a criminal offence. An insurance bond provides no benefits or protection for investors – and should never ever be used inside a pension (QROPS). Blevins Franks also has a close tie with Russell funds – and routinely invests their clients’ funds in Russell. There’s nothing bad about Russell – but there’s nothing good about them either. A portfolio should always be a well-spread mixture of funds from the whole market – not a narrow selection of investments from one provider. I can’t see any information on the Blevins Franks website about their professional indemnity insurance, compliance or commission policy. All in all, I think there are too many risks with this firm and it should be avoided.

    Finance Spain – Patrick Macdonald – This firm comes high up the Google rankings, so obviously spends a lot of money on SEO and/or Google Ads. The “Regulation” bit on the website states the firm is “part of a group who are regulated by the Financial Services Commission in Gibraltar”. But which “group” is it talking about? There’s a link to the GFSC website, but no evidence as to how the firm is licensed. The website also claims to consist of “qualified and regulated international wealth managers and members of the Chartered Institute for securities and Investment (CISI) in the UK”. But who are these so-called wealth managers? The only one named on the website is Patrick Macdonald – and the CISI register shows him as being employed by Blacktower. But the firm Finance Spain does not appear on the GFSC register as being one of Blacktower’s agents – so how is this firm licensed?

    What worries me most about this website is that it is openly flogging insurance bonds. It promotes “Spanish Portfolio Bonds” – which are routinely sold illegally by the scammers. It claims these bonds are a “tax beneficial home for investments”. But that isn’t true in Spain, as the so-called tax benefits only work for UK residents. In the “Wealth” section of the website, you are met with a brazen offer of insurance bonds from Prudential, Old Mutual and SEB. The section on pension transfers is also very worrying as it gives misleading comparisons between UK pension providers and EU-based QROPS providers; it fails to provide warnings against transferring final salary pensions and – worst of all – states “There is greater investment choice”. This so-called choice is what so many scammers in Spain (in the past ten years) have used to destroy victims’ pensions with high-risk, high-commission, unregulated investments such as structured notes.

    Ironically, the Finance Spain website has a section called “Top 5 Warnings” about pension scams. It recognises that the industry is rife with scammers and warns about cold calling, cashing in pensions, pension reviews and the promise of high returns. But it ignores the fact that Finance Spain is itself heavily promoting insurance bonds – which have been the biggest single cause of pension scams in Spain in the past decade. With no clear information about licensing, compliance, insurance or commission policy – and no idea who the firm is or by whom it is managed – I think it is safe to say this is one to avoid.

    Spectrum IFA – Oh dear, where to begin! There are so many alarm bells here, it’s like being inside a busy fire station. No investment license, but openly giving investment advice, and flogging insurance bonds: “efficient investing (using Insurance wrappers”. And that’s just the home page. The website openly boasts: “Our internationally qualified, professional advisers make certain you receive the best possible advice for the following areas:  Investment Advice in Spain – Pension planning in Spain. That’s a bold claim to make for a firm with no investment license.

    The website goes on to boast: “All our advisers live in Spain, are experienced and qualified.” But who are they? What are their qualifications? One “financial adviser” is Dennis Radford who claims to be qualified with the CISI – but does not appear on the register. Aside from lying about his qualifications, he is one of the former Continental Wealth Management scammers responsible for defrauding many victims out of their pensions and life savings. I have brought this to Spectrum’s attention before, but they obviously don’t care – as Radford brings in a lot of business and commission (on illegally-sold insurance bonds and high-risk, inappropriate investments).

    There is one adviser who is qualified with the CII – John Hayward. I believe he is a decent bloke – so what on earth he is doing with Spectrum is beyond me. Spain may be full of inadequately licensed firms which do nothing but flog insurance bonds to victims who don’t need them and can’t afford them, but there are some (admittedly not many) decent firms he could join.

    Abbey Wealth – This firm has been around a long time – flogging insurance bonds to unsuspecting victims. The firm was an agent of well-known scammers Inter Alliance – the “network” of which Continental Wealth Management was also a member. Abbey Wealth is now licensed by the Central Bank of Ireland. If you’ve ever wondered why so many firms like Ireland, it’s because regulation there is as flaccid as a marshmallow. Another reason why Quilter International is so active there with its insurance bonds – so beloved of so many pension scammers. Abbey boasts a flock of “advisers” who claim to be passionate about financial services – including Ben Noifield who states he is CII qualified (the CII register says otherwise). The rest of the sorry team are an assortment of unqualified salesmen masquerading as advisers.

    No mention of professional indemnity insurance, and no reference to their murky past as part of the Inter Alliance shambles.

    Alexander Peter – No information about if or how the firm is licensed; who the advisers are and whether they are qualified; who is in charge, what professional indemnity insurance they hold.

    Harrison Brook – This firm claims to be a member of the Nexus Global network. But there is no access to the agency agreement and no link to any professional indemnity insurance details or information about who is in charge and who the “advisers” are (and whether any of them are qualified). The question also has to be asked: why don’t firms get their own license rather than joining a network? Ding dong!

    Seagate Wealth – No information about how (or if) this firm is licensed. It states on the website: “We work in conjunction with fully regulated and authorised companies”. So presumably that’s an admittance that they are not regulated or authorised. There’s no information about who controls and is responsible for the firm, and nothing to state how any of the team members are qualified. Perhaps one of the biggest alarm bells about this lot is that they are mostly ex AES International and stole the Spanish client book back in 2015.

  • Manita Khuller Award – Justice Against All Odds

    Manita Khuller Award – Justice Against All Odds

    Brave pension scam Manita Khuller took on rogue QROPS trustee FNB and won. Also a Quilter International victim, and scammed by unlicensed Eric Jordan and Colin Bloodworth of Professional Portfolio International, this brave and determined woman took her case to court in Guernsey and won.

    The recent awards given to Quilter Cheviot and Quilter International by International Adviser (sponsored by Quilter) must have sickened and disgusted many Quilter (OMI/Skandia) victims. Editor Kirsten Hastings’ saccharine and gushing words of praise will have been seen as offensive in the extreme by the thousands of victims who have lost their pensions and life savings in Quilter International death bonds.

    While there were, indeed, some very decent firms given well-deserved awards for excellent service and innovation, the prizes handed out to the sponsors of the event were just plain wrong. International Adviser Editor Kirsten Hastings should hang her head in profound shame. She knows full well how many people have been ruined by Quilter. She knows Quilter’s victims are dying – and some have died. She is fully aware that many more are contemplating suicide and that most are facing a bleak Christmas and poverty for the rest of their lives. And yet she can still publicly praise a company which she is fully aware has facilitated investment fraud on a massive scale; congratulate them warmly, and smile broadly while cocking a coquettish nod at the distraught victims as she played canned applause.

    I’m going to add an award which was conspicuous by its absence; an award for a brave and determined woman who stood up in the flaccid jurisdiction of Guernsey to a negligent pension trustee: FNB International. Home to many scams and scammers, Guernsey had for many years hosted pension scams – until eventually de-listed by HMRC. A well-known tax haven, Guernsey does have an ombudsman for financial services (albeit a weak and ineffective one) – but he refuses to hear any complaints about matters relating to the height of Guernsey’s disgraceful past.

    The heroine so who richly deserves a medal is Manita Khuller – victim of Quilter International, FNB International Trustees and Professional Portfolio International. Between them, these three negligent and culpable parties conspired to cause the destruction of her two final salary pensions worth £330,000 ($430,921/€386,574). The Guernsey Court denied Ms Khuller’s original claim for restitution – and, at first, all seemed lost and it looked like the scammers were going to get away with it. But, unprepared to go down without a fight, Khuller sought an appeal based on the gross negligence of the unregulated adviser – Professional Portfolio International, which FNB had used while she was living in Thailand.

    Roger Berry of Concept Trustees in Guernsey, commented on this: “The trustee sought to show that they could rely on the delegation to the adviser/manager to remove or qualify its duties as trustee and in any event, to be liable, the trustees had to be shown to have acted with gross negligence.”

    Mr. Berry spoke from significant first-hand experience – as he himself had been accepting investment instructions from AES International’s Stephen Ward (of Premier Pension Solutions in Spain) in the high-risk and toxic EEA Life Settlements fund as far back as 2010.  So, he knows all about the catastrophic consequences of accepting business from known serial scammers into obviously unsuitable investments. Berry is also familiar with the art of gross and grotesque negligence.

    Rather more eloquently, Henry Tapper covered the subject and asked some very pertinent questions about the Manita Khuller case:

    1. How she lost two guaranteed DB pensions with strong employer covenants
    2. Why PPI continues to operate throughout Asia under MD Eric Jordan
    3. Why Old Mutual and Skandia (now Quilter International) have yet again been found wrapping dodgy investments
    4. How a South African and now UK bank is owning  a Guernsey Trust in the first place
    5. What Geoff Gavey, Alan Glen and co were doing at FNB international to claim “trusteeship”.

    Perhaps, in years to come, people in the financial industry will discuss in hushed tones the epic and cautionary tale of Manita vs. Quilter.

    But What has Quilter got to do with a Guernsey-based pension trustee who accepted unregulated investment advice into toxic, high-risk, unregulated funds – LM and Mansion Student Accommodation?”

    The answer is, of course, EVERYTHING. A Quilter insurance bond should never have been used in a QROPS at all in the first place – and was only there in order to provide scammers posing as independent financial advisers with hefty, undisclosed commissions.

    This case was about FNB International, the guilty QROPS trustee who facilitated this scam. But, of course, this firm did not act alone. As in all the thousands of similar cases, the main protagonists started with the rogue advisory firm and ended with the rogue life (or, rather, death) office – in this case Quilter International. But similar cases involving this type of pension investment fraud involve SEB, Generali, FPI and RL360.

    Manita Khuller was advised to transfer her defined-benefit pensions by Professional Portfolio International, an unlicensed advisory firm based in Bangkok – where she was living at the time – into the Plaiderie QROPS. Of course, the reality was that her pensions should never have been transferred at all and would have been much better left where they were – safe in the hands of professionals and far away from the grubby paws of unlicensed scammers posing as financial advisers.

    Then, going down the well-trodden path of traditional pension and investment scams, PPI put their victim’s fund into a death bond for their undisclosed 7% or 8% commission, and then invested it entirely in high-risk, toxic, unregulated funds for further huge, undisclosed commissions. None of these three phases of the scam should ever happened: not the transfer out of her final salary pension scheme; not the purchase of the unnecessary, inflexible and expensive death bond; not the risky, inappropriate investments. But Quilter International facilitated it all – rewarding the scammers at PPI handsomely (as they do with so many unregulated scammers across the globe).

    Professional Portfolio International – run by Eric Jordan and Colin Bloodworth – claim, on their website, to: “strive to help each client grow, protect and enjoy their wealth”. But this, of course, is completely untrue. If they had their clients’ interests at heart, they wouldn’t have put Manita Khuller into a Quilter International bond in the first place; and they wouldn’t have invested her precious pension in high risk toxic crap in the second place. Their only motivation was, of course, their own fat commissions.

    Jordan and Bloodworth claim to have a “very knowledgeable and suitably qualified team of experienced advisers”. But this is clearly untrue – as any qualified adviser would know that an insurance bond serves no purpose inside a pension wrapper and wouldn’t be seen dead advising a valued client to invest in worthless rubbish such as LM and Mansion.

    Jordan and Bloodworth’s website goes on to boast that “PPI is able to deliver the highest level of progressive financial planning and wealth management services”. And yet, it is clear this is not only a black lie, but that “planning and service” are the furthest things from their minds. The only things they care about, obviously, are fat commissions and conning victims like Manita Khuller out of their pensions and life savings.

    So, Manita Khuller was failed and scammed by three parties:

    • Rogue advisory firm Professional Portfolio International in Bangkok – run by Eric Jordan in Thailand and Colin Bloodworth in Indonesia
    • Rogue QROPS trustee FNB International in Guernsey
    • Rogue death office Quilter International (previously Old Mutual International/Royal Skandia)

    Manita Khuller – like thousands of other victims of Quilter International, QROPS trustees and unlicensed advisers – was a low-risk, retail investor – as is anyone investing a pension fund. But more than half of her pension – around £170,000 – was put into LM Managed Performance Fund, run by Australian-based LM Investment Management. This company is now in administration. Another big chunk was put into the Mansion Student Accommodation Fund which is now in liquidation.

    The risk-laden, unregulated LM Managed Performance Fund invested in residential properties on the Gold Coast, with some IFAs outside of the company issuing warnings about its health as early as 2011 (it collapsed in 2013); affecting the finances of some four and a half thousand investors.

    When she learned of the failure of LM, Manita began to look into her other holdings, discovering her pension pot of over £300k had been split into three different high-risk, unregulated funds designed for professional, experienced investors with a large supply of money they could afford to lose and an appetite for risk to match.

    Almost a third of her money had been invested in the Mansion Student Accommodation fund, and due to the fund’s liquidation her money had been frozen without her being able to access it at all. Speaking to This is Money, Manita commented:

    “No one with a moderate or low tolerance to investment risk should have had their money put into such funds.“

    And that, in a nutshell, is the crux of the situation. Quilter are far too willing to give terms of business to unlicensed scammers – with no relevant qualifications or regulations in place to ensure their professional obligations are not compromised by greed, lies and disloyalty. Quilter have been doing this for years now – and have made a fortune out of the sales of their expensive, unnecessary death bonds. They have perpetuated the myth for years that firms with only an insurance license (or even no license at all) can “advise” on investments as long as they flog their victims a death bond and then “pick” from the toxic investments on the death bond provider’s platform – obviously always choosing the investments that pay them the highest commissions (like LM and Mansion).

    So here is the award that Kirsten Hastings of International Adviser should have given:

    INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGER OF PENSION SCAMS

    (especially those facilitated by Quilter International)

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  • Quilter: Critical or Hypocritical?

    Quilter: Critical or Hypocritical?

    • Fraud Alert
    • Quilter Logo

    Recent data obtained by Quilter (formerly Old Mutual International and Royal Skandia) under a freedom of information request has further highlighted the issue of financial education, or rather the lack of it, with many casualties of fraud ‘unaware they may have fallen victim‘ to such a scheme.

    Quilter plc (the well-known asset/wealth management company, “life office”, and old friends of ours) has recently acquired figures clearly showing an absence of any kind of appropriate action from the ironically-named Action Fraud organisation. This data demonstrates that despite 400 pension fraud reports having been submitted to the inept crime-reporting centre in 2019 alone, as few as 26 of these cases were passed on to the police to investigate – representing just 6.6% of the total cases they handled.

    YearPension fraud reports received by Action FraudPension fraud reports reviewed by NFIBPension fraud reports disseminated to the police and other agencies
    20151353208208
    20165479797
    20174096262
    20183464638
    20193944626
    Up to July 2020161*N/K** 24*
    Christopher Copper-Ind @intlinvestment
    14 September 2020

    *Figures omit February 2020 bulk upload of retrospective reports to avoid misrepresenting case volumes in 2020.

    ** Figure not disclosed in the FOI response

    These same figures show that this year (as of July 2020), of the 161 pension fraud reports that were received by Action Fraud, only 24 have been disseminated to the relevant police force for investigation after the information was reviewed by NFIB (the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau). While this may represent a slight statistical improvement on previous years, this is neither good enough nor in any way acceptable – both for the victims of financial fraud, and the honest, decent, hardworking IFA’s out there who have seen the reputation of their profession suffer greatly at the hands of fraudsters and scammers alike.

    The time has come to call out the thieves in their midst!

    Scams, and the lack of an active regulator in place to ensure their non-proliferation, undermine the reputation of the industry itself – and of any decent advisers out there.

    The supposed altruism behind the actions of Quilter, who have seen the story of their plucky attempt at standing up for the little guy circulated by almost every major financial publication available in the UK, and by a fair few online and overseas English-language webpages/articles besides, is questionable at the very best – and a downright attempt at pulling the famous ‘Kansas City Shuffle‘ (when everybody looks right, you go left) at worst. I would like to use this opportunity to call “bull-“, as I believe I have heard my American friends say when faced with a claim that is clearly one of the more than 50 shades of bovine excrement currently available from all major stockers of the substance.

    Quilter has, in the past ten years, facilitated hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of pension scams with their “fertilizer”-based products.

    Previously operating under the name Old Mutual International, OMI or Old Mutual for short, Quilter has helped the serial scammers behind all kinds of financial skullduggery get away with murder (or should I say fraud, to be more specific) under the – cough – “watchful” gaze of their CEO Paul Feeney, and Peter Kenny (another old friend of this publication).

    It seems that almost every shady offshore firm has been taking advantage of Quilter and other life offices just like them being asleep at the wheel, with hordes of unlicensed investment firms popping up with increasing frequency and success in virtually every expat jurisdiction (especially Spain: e.g. Darren Kirby and Jody Smart at Continental Wealth Management).

    Quilter are (at least partially) to blame. The well-known asset management company’s lack of responsibility when it comes to selling inappropriate products to any suitor who comes a-calling is – at this point – bordering on criminal negligence. (And that’s if you remove the border…)

    Quilter are fully aware that the statistics they’ve obtained (£30,857,329 lost to UK pension scams since 2017) are downright misleading. They fall woefully short of demonstrating even the losses incurred by their own (Quilter’s) facilitation of financial crime in recent years generally – and the last three years particularly.

    ‘Tip of the Iceberg‘ indeed! Even the Titanic was given some sign of the peril hidden in the depths of the Atlantic as it hurtled to its certain and untimely demise!

    Yet when it comes to financial fraud and investment scams (particularly those that involve unsuspecting clients’ pension pots), there is almost no pre-emptive warning given to the public, except for massively underestimated figures produced by the very people who have been clearing the way for the scammers from day one. And by that, I do – of course – mean the life offices (like Quilter/OMI) themselves.

    I would like to take this opportunity to quote Jon Greer, who is the Head of Retirement Policy at Quilter. Mr Greer said: “We are entering a period of considerable economic uncertainty, and one in which generating a decent return on your investments will be extremely challenging. This is the ideal environment for scammers to thrive and it is no surprise to see huge amounts of money still being lost each year at the hands of criminals.

    The fact that it is so hard to investigate and prosecute pension scams is effectively handing pension scammers a get out of jail free card. If you are mugged, it’s highly likely that the police will investigate, but lose your life savings to a pension scammer and your odds don’t look good.

    – Jon Greer, Head of Retirement Policy @ Quilter

    “Pension scams and other investment frauds are extremely complex, they can span multiple jurisdictions, and can often go uncovered for years before the victim realises their money is gone. This all makes investigating the scams incredibly time-consuming and expensive, which is why the police have to prioritise those few cases where they have a chance of success.

    “The government have taken action on unsolicited pension calls with the ban on cold calling, but scammers are sidestepping the legislation and moving online. Movement on the regulation of search engines and social media platforms has been painfully slow and the regulation has failed to keep up with the evolution of scammers.

    “The government has a perfect opportunity to bring the regulation into the 21st century by including financial harms within scope of the forthcoming Online Harms Bill. This will mean that, for the first time, search engines and social media platforms will be bound by a statutory duty of care to tackle harm caused as a result of content or activity on their services.”

    “In doing so, search engines and social media providers will be legally required to remove suspected scammers immediately on notification, and not allow them to operate in the first place, or face sanctions from the new regulator,” he said.

    As you can see Mr. Greer, and by association Quilter, talk a good fight and hit on almost every relevant point a consumer would want to hear from a company of their standing and stature within the financial industry; projecting themselves as a shining light – pouring their beacon out over the surrounding landscape and frightening any existing/would-be scammers out from their hiding places, while at the same time calling on the government for harsher penalties and swifter action to be taken (measures which Quilter themselves, and companies just like them, have blocked on numerous occasions).

    And all this “bright light-shining” has served its purpose: leaving regulators, government and public alike too dazzled to notice the wrongdoing going on behind the source of the so-called light and within Quilter‘s very own doorstep!”

    The narrative that Quilter/Old Mutual/OMI would have you believe is a ridiculous one, one of the main reasons I have written this piece is to challenge that narrative; and hopefully make you (the reader) think about a company that damns financial fraudsters and scammers alike with one hand, while secretly feeding them with the other.

    The grim reality is substantially different from the one that Quilter aim to project for themselves. That being said, it makes my reply to J. Greer’s well put comments even easier:

    “Actions speak louder than words, and all we’re hearing is a deafening silence. If you truly believe the message your company has spent tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds to tell us – by buying article space from any major financial publication that would have you, and getting them to run the story you wanted to put out there.

    It’s time to put your money where your mouth is, quite literally; and begin funding the financial education sorely needed in schools and workplaces throughout the country that will serve to prevent the kind of investment-based crime you claim to stand against!

    “Oh and maybe, just maybe, improve upon your company’s policies so that you do not sell the very products that facilitate thieves who have stolen hundreds of millions of pounds by misselling those same products in just the last few years, whilst simultaneously trying to absolve yourselves of any blame.

    “To put it simply: don’t take your definition of “action” from Action Fraud…”

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    Fraudstermind: Jody Smart

  • Pension Life – Pension File November 2019

    Pension Life – Pension File November 2019

    FCA and FOS continue to dismay and disgust; CWM criminal case set to change offshore financial services; Forged dealing instructions epidemic; Offshore advisory firms without an investment license.

    Pension Life Pension File - a round up of the disgusting disasters in the UK and offshore in the murky world of financial services. From the FCAand the FOS to scammers and facilitators of financial crime, this world is like the toilets in the FCA's offices: need a damn good clean.

    It now emerges that on top of a failed “City Watchdog” (the Federated Consolidation of Apathy) we also have not just one, but two failed ombudsmen.

    The FCA has had a light bulb moment as it announces a “temporary ban” on the promotion of unregulated mini bonds. This so-called “nuclear” option is due to start in January 2020 and is scheduled to last for just one year. Presumably, the FCA will have lost interest by then. Or perhaps the huge effort required to teach FCA staff how to use a toilet will have exhausted them anyway. Maybe the new parliament will close the whole thing down and set up a proper regulator – ideally run by a mixture of proper professionals and also some victims (who are the real experts on regulatory failures).

    In an “FFS!” moment, the FCA is now rivaled by the FOS as it too is exposed as a failure by the Glassdoor employees review site. One FOS employee reviewer stated: “Management has been hauled up in front of the Treasury on more than one occasion; it has received and continues to receive negative comments on Glassdoor; it has been subject of investigation by Dispatches but nothing has changed.” Sounds just like the FCA – at least the two organisations are consistent in a unified manner. Perhaps Amerdeep Somal (Head of the FOS) and Andrew Bailey (would-be Head of the Bank of England) consider this to be a good achievement?

    Sadly, the Pensions Ombudsman is no better either. Complaints where negligent, lazy, apathetic ceding providers – such as Standard Life, Aviva, Prudential and Scottish Widows – have handed over £ millions to pension scams, are not upheld. The Ombudsman’s excuse is that the “Scorpion” campaign which warned the public and the industry about the dangers of pension liberation fraud was not published until February 14th 2013. The Ombudsman conveniently forgets to mention that there had been a very clear and loud warning back in 2010 – by OPRA (the forerunner of the Pensions Ombudsman). But it would seem that no British regulators or ombudsmen ever let the truth get in the way of defending big, toxic institutions which are “too big to fail”.

    Continental Wealth Management's Jody Bell (Smart, Kirby) and her partner Darren Kirby will now be cross examined in the criminal court for a second time in February 2020.

    In Spain, the Criminal Justice System has, at long last, decided that the CWM (Continental Wealth Management) scam run by Jody Smart, Darren Kirby and an assortment of silver-tongued scammers must be brought to justice. This follows a year-long initiative to document the £100 million scam operated by the Costa Blanca based firm and facilitated by life (death) offices Old Mutual International, SEB and Generali. It is hoped that Smart, Kirby and the rest of the motley crew of advisers such as Dean Stogsdill, Anthony Downs, Neil Hathaway, Richard Peasley, Phill Pennick and Dennis Radford will serve long prison sentences.

    The Spanish criminal court has made an order that the life offices (OMI, SEB, Generali) and all those connected to Continental Wealth Management – and who facilitated their crimes in the years up to 2017 when the firm collapsed – will be called to give evidence. In particular, the risk profiles and forged signatures on dealing instructions will be brought into evidence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYlxu8YOaAM&t=12s

    Part of the Continental Wealth Management scam was the repeated use of forged signatures on dealing instructions. This practice became accepted by life offices such as OMI from 2010 onwards as the volume of business coming in from scammers became extremely lucrative. Scammers such as Darren Kirby and his team of bogus “advisers” (who went on to work for firms such as Spectrum IFA Group and Pennick Blackwell) would use a blank dealing instruction bearing the victim’s signature to “churn” the fund and maximise the commissions earned. The favourite investments were structured notes from rogue providers such as Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura and Leonteq.

    Old Mutual International facilitated millions of pounds' worth of financial crime from scammers such as CWM. Thousands of dealing instructions had forged investor signatures - but this was "good business" for the likes of OMI.

    Old Mutual International, SEB and Generali accepted thousands of dealing instructions from scammers such as Continental Wealth Management. On top of knowing full well that such firms had no investment license (in fact, CWM had no license of any kind) and no qualifications to give investment advice, OMI and the other rogue death offices repeatedly accepted these dealing instructions with obviously forged signatures.

    CWM and a number of other firms would trick victims into signing a blank dealing instruction. Then they would countersign it with an illegible signature. These blank investment forms would then be photocopied repeatedly – sometimes for many years – as the victims’ funds were churned and repeatedly invested in high-risk investments such as toxic structured notes.

    Old Mutual International actively encouraged this financial crime by paying unlicensed scammers like CWM 8% commissions to flog expensive, unnecessary life bonds – and then flog the risky, toxic investments offered on the life office platform.

    One of the structured note providers – Leonteq – is now being sued by OMI for the £94 million worth of especially toxic notes sold to hundreds of victims to destroy their funds and pay the scammers an extra 2% commission “under the table”. However, OMI put these structured notes on their platform in the first place, and accepted the forged dealing instructions in the second place. Difficult to see how this was anyone’s fault other than Old Mutual’s.

    Part of the syndrome of offshore financial crime being routinely accepted by life offices, is the proliferation of “advisory” firms operating without being fully licensed. There is a cheesy urban myth that a firm can give investment advice if it flogs victims an insurance bond and then picks from the selection of toxic, high-risk investments being offered by the bond provider. This isn’t deemed to be “investment advice” as the so-called adviser is merely assisting the investor to make his own decisions (i.e. give himself advice). This practice has gone on for years – and is still going on with firms such as Spectrum IFA Group which openly advertises the fact that it gives investment advice, even though it has no investment license.

    The FCA is now being rivaled by the FOS and the POS for the lowest standards.

    While the FCA wouldn’t have the slightest interest in what goes on offshore (after all, it doesn’t give a toss what happens in the UK either), the Malta FSA has at least made sure that only licensed advisers give investment advice on Malta’s watch. An advisory firm with an insurance license can still flog insurance bonds that few people need and even fewer can afford, but Malta will no longer accept investment advice from such “Chiringuitos” (Spanish for financial scammer). This has, of course, resulted in an exodus to Gibraltar where the scammers can pretty much do what they like. The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission actively encourages scams. STM Fidecs – bogus QROPS trustees for the Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund scam (under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office) – and the Blackmore Global investment scam perpetrated by serial scammers Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh – are still flourishing happily on the Gib rock. The Gib FSC stands idly by and does nothing. Obviously, the Gib lot are trying to emulate the FCA – and succeeding happily.

    It will take more than a few fireworks to clean up the financial services mess in the UK, in expat jurisdictions across the globe, and in the FCA’s toilets.

  • How risky are structured products – and fireworks?

    How risky are structured products – and fireworks?

    Normally a great fan of FT Adviser – and their excellent, independent journalists – I was horrified at the recent “Guide to Structured Products” (particularly the section on how risky they are by Craig Rickman).

    Structured notes are as dangerous as fireworks and should only be used by qualified, licensed professionals.

    Noting that this article can be used towards CPD credits, I was astonished that so little attention was paid to the toxic legacy of so many structured notes since 2008. And how Rickman has failed to mention the many thousands of lives which have been ruined – as well as how many people have died or taken their own lives because of being sold these products by unscrupulous con men masquerading as advisers.

    It is not just the rogue advisers who are at fault for flogging structured notes to their unsuspecting victims – it is the life offices such as Old Mutual International who offer them on their platforms of toxic investment rubbish (including such snorters as LM, Axiom, Premier New Earth, Kijani and Quadris Forestry).

    Rickman refers to “lessons learned” and quotes how a high street bank was fined £1.5m in 2012 for flogging so-called capital-guaranteed structured products in the UK. Of course, the reality was (and is) that there is no such thing as a fool-proof capital guarantee. It is all just a question of relative risks. But the scammers just love the phrase “capital guarantee” because it virtually guarantees their victims won’t question the investments in such products. And when the losses start to appear, the advisers will fob the victims off with the well-worn phrase “don’t worry – it’s just a paper loss”. By the time the structured notes mature and the losses are crystalised, the adviser is long gone.

    It is a great shame that Rickman omits any mention of the huge offshore scandal which has been going on since around 2008. This consists of a cartel of rotten-to-the core life offices including OMI (IoM and Ireland), SEB, Generali and various other members of AILO (Association of International Life Offenders). These AILO members have been promoting and facilitating international financial crime for almost a decade and have made vast fortunes out of their evil trade.

    Of course, high-risk structured notes have played a major part in this worldwide crime. These products – particularly those flogged by Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura, Leonteq and BNP Paribas – were routinely sold through armies of unlicensed, unqualified “chiringuitos financieros” (financial scammers) so that thousands of unsuspecting victims could be relieved of their life savings. The ultimate goal was, naturally, the huge commissions paid to line the scammers’ pockets.

    I once tried to get my head round exactly how structured notes work and I asked a senior manager from one of the providers to give me a couple of hours to get me up to speed. The only thing I knew for sure about structured notes was that they were routinely abused by scammers such as Continental Wealth Management. And that victims would typically lose half their life savings – and sometimes more (much more).

    The structured note expert was doing well with me as his pupil for about five minutes as he gave me a broad introduction. Then, sadly, he switched from English to Japanese, then Serbo Croatian, Icelandic and Māori . By the time he changed to Xhosa, I am afraid I was a lost cause. But I had a nice time checking out my Facebook while he gabbled on. I am no expert by a long way – but I think I know a wee bit more than the average man on the street. And I think my conclusion that structured notes should never be used for retail, unsophisticated investors is correct. In fact, that is what it almost always says on the tin:

    • Not for retail distribution
    • For professional investors only
    • Due to the complex nature of these products, investors should be made aware of the risk of loss of part or all of the capital

    And then there is what isn’t on the tin:

    • Offered by bent life offices such as Old Mutual International who do no due diligence or “asset reviews” on such products
    • Routinely used by scammers because they love the concealed high commissions
    • Have caused hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of losses in the past ten years

    Old Mutual International – lover of all unlicensed, unqualified scammers across the globe – is now suing Leonteq for £94 million worth of toxic structured notes. The widespread use of these products has resulted in devastating losses – and victims have died as a result.

    Ironically, OMI aboss Peter Kenny is quoted as saying: “I would encourage all industry participants to work together to eradicate poor practices once and for all.” And for once I agree with him – shutting down OMI altogether would be a great start.

    Any investment is only ever as good as the quality of the advice given to the investor. Whether it is a structured note (e.g. Leonteq); a fund (e.g. Woodford Equity Income fund); a bond (e.g. London Capital & Finance); property (e.g. Dolphin Trust); an EIS (e.g. Guy Myles‘ Octopus) or the local bookmaker.

    How risky are structured products – and fireworks? And how good, safe and suitable are they?

    When I say “good” I mean “suitable“. And there’s the rub: what is claimed to be suitable by so many so-called advisers is actually suitable for their own pockets but totally unsuitable for their clients. Of course, another problem is that there are armies of firms which call themselves advisers but don’t have an investment license. They claim that they can give investment advice with an insurance license so long as they con their victims into using an expensive, pointless insurance bond (such as OMI, SEB, Generali, RL360, Friends Provident etc) and then pick from the many toxic investments offered on the bond provider’s platform.

    I like comparing structured notes to fireworks. They both need to be handled with great care and should only be used by those qualified and authorised to deploy them. With fireworks in the UK, every year thousands of people are injured and end up in hospital with scars which will last a lifetime. With structured notes, thousands people are suffering from the loss of their life savings. There have been deaths and suicide attempts – and there will inevitably be more.

    Journalists – especially financial reporters – have a duty to inform and warn the public. It is a great pity that Craig Rickman of FT Adviser has missed such an excellent opportunity to expose this rotten sector of the financial services industry. If this article qualified for CPD credits, then he also missed a golden opportunity to help financial services professionals learn to protect consumers from the dangers of structured products – and the scammers who peddle them.

  • Jody Smart of CWM – courting justice

    Jody Smart of CWM – courting justice

    Jody Smart (or Bell or Kirby or Pearson) who was shareholder and sole director of CWM - Continental Wealth Management/Trust. In court in Denia facing criminal charges.

    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.

    Franco Pearson of Oceana Club, current boyfriend of Jody Smart (or Bell or Kirby or Pearson) who was legally responsible for Continental Wealth Management/Trust.

    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 Smart's magnificent Spanish villa - on sale for 760,000 Euros (hopefully to help pay back some of the victims of her company CWM who lost their life savings)

    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”.

  • DB transfers: FCA hasn’t a Scooby

    DB transfers: FCA hasn’t a Scooby

    The FC A hasn’t got a ****ing Scooby. The Federation of Consolidated Apathy has now proved way beyond reasonable doubt that it is clueless about pensions in general.  And worse – much worse – that it doesn’t understand the deadly problems with DB pension transfer advice.

    The Federation of Consolidated Apathy has published a video which deliberately misleads people into thinking that advisers will provide DB transfer advice which is in the victims’ interests.

    This incredibly boring video seems to have been produced by some clot called Mark Goold who claims to work for the “Communications Division” of the FC A. He clearly has no understanding of communications since he has made a video that is so incredibly monotonous and dreary that it is impossible to watch – and even harder to believe. Either Goold knows nothing about ten years’ worth of DB pension transfer scams – or he is deliberately ignoring it.

    Goold the goon says he “wants to talk about our expectations of financial advisers when they provide pension transfer advice”.  A noble aim – just a shame he did no research before opening his mouth (and putting his foot in it).  If he’d had even half a brain, he would have consulted the British Steelworkers before making such an utter fool of himself.  Equally, he could have consulted a few of the thousands of victims of DB scheme members who have been scammed over the last few years because of FCA-regulated transfer sign-offs.

    The one thing that Goold says that is true and accurate is “it will generally not be in a client’s best interests to leave a pension scheme that will provide them with a guaranteed and sustainable income when they retire”.

    But he does not say what action the FCA is proposing to take against the negligent – and, in some cases, fraudulent – FCA-regulated advisers who have been signing off such transfers for so many years.  These firms have facilitated widespread financial crime and this has led to the destruction of millions of pounds’ worth of pensions.  But the nits at the FCA are far too busy knitting to take any action against these firms.

    The FCA goon goes on to spout: “we would expect advisers should follow certain steps, ask certain questions and provide specific documentation when reviewing your personal situation and recommending something to you”. He then goes on to list a number of “steps” that should “generally be carried out” by advisers. But he forgets to mention that the unethical FCA-regulated transfer advisers will deliberately omit these steps. These rogue advisers may be relatively rare, but they will – between them – feed the majority of the scammers in the UK and offshore.

    Of course, the subject of “contingent” charging has not reared its ugly head. The Federation of Consolidated Apathy is obviously expecting advisers to make a choice:

    1. Advise to transfer and earn a fee or
    2. Advise not to transfer and earn nothing

    I expect ethical advisers will easily walk away empty handed – happy that they’ve done the right thing (and prevented a transfer to criminals). But that’s a bit like expecting that a regulator will do a bit of regulating between knitting sessions. There are, of course, plenty of decent advisers in the UK – but their reputation is called into question because of the few FCA-regulated snorters.

    Finally, after a load of excrutiatingly boring waffle about what the FCA “expects”, Goold gets to the most important question of all:

    “Did the adviser explain that the employer scheme provides a guaranteed income in retirement?  Did they explain that, if you transfer, you may run out of money. You may live longer than your pension does?” – how would you feel about that?

    Goold clearly comes from the planet Zogolob.  And he really ought to go back there asap before he poses any more daft questions such as:  “How would you feel about running out of money?”.  What the hell does he expect a client to say: “Fine, thank you.  I can just print some more if I need it.  Or if the money printer is out of ink, I’ll just go pick some from the money tree”.  Beam me up Scottie FFS!

    This moron then goes on to raise the very issue that the scammers use to dupe their victims: CONTROL.  The criminals of the financial services world use “control” as a powerful weapon to seduce clients into transferring their DB pensions – not so the member can have control but so the adviser has control.

    Having passed control of the pension over to an unscrupulous – and often criminal – adviser, the rogue FCA-regulated transfer sign-off then facilitates a number of fatal steps which will guarantee the destruction of the fund.  And, inevitably, will guarantee that the victim will run out of money.

    There are two types of crimes that then follow – depending on whether the victim is in the UK or offshore.

    Arguably, if the victim is based in the UK there may be less risk and more protection.  But you can ask the many thousands of scam victims who have lost their life savings as to whether this is true. The answer is likely to be that the actual protection is slightly less than an ashtray on a twist’n go.

    The Goold twerp should have asked not just the British Steelworkers but also the victims of the London Quantum scam; the Berkeley Burke, James Hay and Suffolk Life SIPPS scams; Ark; Capita Oak; Westminster; STM Fidecs/Trafalgar Multi Asset fund; Integrated Capabilities/Blackmore Global fund; GFS/Blackmore Global and dozens more. But, of course, he didn’t bother.

    These UK-based victims saw their funds being transferred to bogus occupational schemes or negligent SIPPS and QROPS providers. The money was then destroyed by being invested in worthless assets – such as store pods, car parking spaces, derelict German buildings, collapsible flats in Cape Verde and mouldy chia seeds.

    Offshore victims fare even worse in the hands of rogue commission-hungry scammers:

    1. The fund will be under the full control of a rogue “adviser” who could well be unqualified – and whose only mission is to rinse commissions out of the victim’s retirement money
    2. This adviser could well be with a firm which only has an insurance license (if it has any license at all) – so any investments made by the firm will have zero regulatory protection
    3. The funds will then be transferred to a QROPS.  And the degree of regulatory observance by the QROPS provider will depend on the jurisdiction.  Malta is now getting its act together, but Gibraltar still has no ombudsman or arbiter. And seems to actively encourage scams and scammers.  A QROPS may be entirely the wrong vehicle and a low-cost, UK-based SIPPS could be a much better solution.  However, leaving the pension where it was would, undoubtedly, have been the best choice (but wouldn’t have earned the scammers any commissions).
    4. The scammer, now fully in control of the victim’s life savings, will transfer the whole lot into an insurance “bond” with a rogue firm such as Old Mutual International, Friends Provident International, RL360 or Hansard.  This will earn the scammer 8% on the amount invested – and could lock the victim in to this arrangement for up to ten years.  The scammer will ignore the fact that he is committing a fraud.
    5. The “bond” provider will now claw back the commission paid to the scammer over the term of the contract – plus, of course, the life office’s own commission.
    6. The life office (Old Mutual, Friends Provident etc) will then offer the victim, and his scammer who now has total control over how the fund is invested, a selection of high-risk, expensive funds and structured notes which will pay the scammer further fat commissions. Many of these funds – such as Axiom, Premier New Earth, Mansion Student Accommodation etc will fail and become worthless. The high-risk structured notes – such as Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura and Leonteq – will destroy most (if not all) of the victims’ funds.
    7. The scammer will lie to the victim and say that the “bond” is necessary for tax efficiency.  This, of course, is untrue since there are only any tax savings if the fund makes a profit – which it won’t.

    Goold goes on to mention that “Having more control over your pension money may be important to you but if you have to transfer your pension fund to enable you to do it, it may impact on your family and lifestyle.”

    Being obviously clueless, this moron forgets to mention that many of the victims of the devastating “impact” on their family and lifestyle are dying.  They are devastated by the loss of their valuable pensions and are facing a wretched, poverty-stricken retirement.  Many are considering suicide.  Some have already taken their own lives or died miserable deaths caused by stress.

     Goold plumbs new depths by claiming that the FCA “would also expect advisers to carry out a detailed comparison of the benefits available in the employers’ pension scheme against the benefits available in any proposed new arrangements”.  But he clearly hasn’t bothered to find out what the devastating consequences of the “new arrangements” are likely to be.

    Goold has also failed to mention that some of the transfer advice is given with only one single aim: to earn commission on the fund value.  The advice is almost always “yes, go ahead and transfer” – irrespective of whether it is obviously not in the victim’s interests. 

    An example of this is Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions who signed off many hundreds of DB pension transfers knowing full well that he was condemning the victim to certain death at the hands of the scammers who would gain control of the fund and would inevitably destroy it.

    There is no possible argument that Ward did not know how the victims’ funds were going to be invested – because he himself was doing the very same thing to his own clients. 

    In fact, the tactic is now changing so that the standard DB transfer advice is routinely “DON’T TRANSFER – IT IS NOT IN YOUR INTERESTS”. The victims are carefully prepared for this and are classified as “insistent” – so the transfer goes ahead anyway.

    Finally, Goold commits the ultimate in offensive indecency and suggests that victims should ask: “What are the death benefits available within the employers’ pension scheme against what are the death benefits available in any proposed new arrangement?”

    This cretin should have asked me before committing such a vile gaff.  I could have referred him to the case of one of the Continental Wealth Management victims – whose £415,000 Shell DB pension fund was totally destroyed.  The stress of facing poverty killed him in July 2019.  He had not one single penny left.  His ex wife had to pay for his funeral.

    FCA morons such as Goold should not talk about “death benefits”. Goold, and his expensive boss Andrew Bailey, should try talking to the pension scam victims so that they understand just how dreadfully the FCA has failed the public.

  • Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again!

    Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again!

    Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again! Just how many warning signs do you need?

    How many warnings do you really need?

    Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again! After the Continental Wealth Management debacle – a fraud facilitated by the usual suspects: Old Mutual International, Generali and SEB – the public must be warned about similar firms which are likely to scam unsuspecting victims.

    In the case of Alliance Partnership Limited – a firm registered in Nevis (where so many scams and scammers are registered because of the secrecy afforded them), there is just about every single warning sign possible. The public must be aware of the dangers posed by this firm.

    With an office in the Czech Republic, this firm has been selling insurance products and investing victims’ funds into unregulated collectives – such as LM – illegally.

    Look at the Alliance Partnership Limited website and you will find all the warning signs are clearly there in black, white, green and red:

    The exact same three death offices as used by Continental Wealth Management to destroy up to £50,000,000

    You simply couldn’t make it up: Alliance Partnership Limited is proudly displaying the three worst insurance companies: Generali, Old Mutual International and SEB, which facilitated the £100 million Continental Wealth Management scam between 2008 and 2017.

    Generali, Old Mutual International and SEB accepted investment instructions from this unregulated firm of scammers into high-risk, toxic structured notes and risky, illiquid UCIS funds. Long after the losses became evident, as low-risk investors were placed into these entirely inappropriate high-risk investments – only suitable for professional or sophisticated investors – Generali, Old Mutual International and SEB carried on accepting identical investment dealing instructions from the scammers at Continental Wealth Management.

    Alliance Partnership Limited has an insurance license in the Czech Republic and boasts that it can “help all of our clients and their unique needs related to the life journey of their financial aspirations”. They claim to be “financial planners” and that “no future is too big or too small for us”. 

    Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again! Yet another firm with an insurance license flogging expensive insurance bonds that nobody needs. If an investor wants to be stuck in a toxic, unnecessary insurance bond – provided by Old Mutual International, Generali, Hansard Global or SEB – which will cost a huge amount in fees and will offer high-risk, unregulated investments – then this is indeed the solution!

    But sensible investors, who don’t want to lose their life savings, should steer well clear. Alliance Partnership claims they are “here to help”. They are using unethical, unscrupulous insurance companies which will take business from any old unregulated scammers. Old Mutual International, Generali, Hansard and SEB deliberately ruin their clients’ funds with high-risk toxic funds, so the public needs to be warned about this firm.

    The only reason firms such as Alliance Partnership use these death offices, is because insurance bonds pay 8% commission. And we know there is a history of using rogue funds such as LM. So steer well clear! Others have been ruined so it is important to learn from them.

    How many more alarm bells do you want?

    How many alarm bells would you like? If the above warnings aren’t enough, here are some more – all there in black and white on the Alliance Partnership website: http://www.alliancesro.com/about.html

    • Alliance Partnership claims to offer savings plans. As it is openly promoting the likes of Generali and RL360, these are bound to be the same savings plans as used to scam thousands of victims into these toxic, expensive, inflexible plans.
    • Alliance Partnership is promoting “alternative investments”. We know that it was selling the LM fund to its victims, and this should ring loud alarm bells – because most of these so-called alternatives only serve to pay the introducer large commissions. Funds such as LM have ruined thousands of investors who have lost all their life savings thanks to unscrupulous brokers and introducers posing as “advisers”.
    • Alliance Partnership claims to offer portfolio and wealth management. The firm does not have an investment license – so it can’t legally give investment advice.
    • Alliance Partnership says it can provide pension planning services – but with just an insurance license, this is illegal.
    • Alliance Partnership is promoting the Canaccord Genuity fund – a fund which is under investigation by the FCA for non-disclosure of fees.
    • Alliance Partnership is featuring not just rogue insurance companies such as OMI, SEB and Generali on its website, but also RL360, Zurich Hansard and FPI. It is disappointing to see Investors Trust advertised on the website: this is the only life office which has ever done anything decent for investment scam victims.
    • Alliance Partnership claims to have a “team of financial planners”, and yet there is no “meet the team” section on the website. This means potential victims have no idea who the team are and can’t check up on their qualifications.
    • Alliance Partnership is promoting Azure Pensions – a QROPS run by Integrated Capabilities. This was a firm which facilitated the Blackmore Global investment scam and should be given a wide berth. https://pension-life.com/azure-pensions-a-reputation-built-on-lack-of-trust/

    Don’t take my word for it. Read the Alliance Partnership website. All the alarm bells are clearly there. Learn from past victims’ mistakes – don’t be next!

  • Continental Wealth Management – “Plunder in paradise”

    Continental Wealth Management – “Plunder in paradise”

    Victims of the Continental Wealth Management scam met Mail on Sunday's Laura Shannon in Denia in July 2019
    Victims of the Continental Wealth Management scam met Mail on Sunday’s Laura Shannon

    Mail on Sunday’s Laura Shannon met a group of victims of the Continental Wealth Management scam in Denia in July 2019.

    Here is a link to her excellent article Continental Wealth Management – “Plunder in paradise”: MAIL ON SUNDAY ARTICLE

    All power to her, this young lady put all other would-be investigative journalists to shame. Laura jumped on a plane on 24th July 2019 when she and her editor heard about the Continental Wealth Management scandal. After a long, hot bus journey from Alicante airport, she got straight down to business. She spent all afternoon interviewing a large group of distressed investors. She then attended the memorial service for one victim who had been killed by the stress he suffered when he lost his pension – thanks to Continental Wealth Management’s Darren Kirby.

    Laura Shannon – putting all other “investigative” journalists to shame

    No other British journalist has bothered to do this. No other national newspaper has taken such an interest in this important story – about how British people have been scammed by British advisers in Europe’s leading expat destination.

    Clearly shaken by the extent of the Continental Wealth Management scam, and the plight of the victims, Laura was deeply moved by the memorial service for victim Mark Davison who had died two weeks earlier. After a very long and tiring day, Laura retired to her hotel to write up her notes – ahead of another full day of meeting more victims.

    So where had all the other so-called newspapers been all this time? Where were The Sun, The Times, The Telegraph, The Mirror, The Guardian, The Express? Too lazy – and clearly not concerned with this very British problem. These newspapers do indeed have some very fine journalists – but this widespread financial crime was too low on their priority list.

    The financial press – such as International Adviser – is too conflicted with its promotion of the very company behind this scam: Old Mutual International.

    On the second day of her visit, Laura Shannon met another group of Continental Wealth’s victims and also spoke to a couple in France by Skype. Her final interview with an elderly lady (who had tried to commit suicide when she lost most of her life savings to the Continental Wealth Management scammers) left her in tears.

    At lunch time, Laura headed back to Alicante airport. Four and a half months pregnant, this energetic and passionate young woman returned to her office in Birmingham to write and file her story. She left little out and covered most of the basic points. Her article left the reader in no doubt: financial crime has flourished in Spain for years.

    There are both criminal and civil actions ongoing now – on the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol. The days of unqualified “chiringuitos” and unlicensed firms are hopefully over. While Britain’s feeble excuse for a regulator – the FCA run by lazy loser Andrew Bailey – fails to take any meaningful action, the Spanish regulator has at least ruled that failing to comply with Spanish regulations is a criminal offence.

    The Malta regulator has tightened up rules to help stop firms operating similar scams from abusing QROPS, and deploying inappropriate investment policies. Multiple class actions in various jurisdictions are taking legal action against rogue insurance companies – such as Old Mutual International – who have encouraged and profited from widespread financial crime.

    Ward’s luxury development at 64 Calle Haya, Moraira, Alicante

    And this is the problem: crime pays. Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions in Moraira is now adding to his ten mortgage-free luxury villa property portfolio in Florida by building a huge luxury villa next to his former office in Calle Haya in Moraira.

    Paul Clarke – Darren Kirby’s former business partner (when Continental Wealth Management was first set up) has for years been seen zooming around the Costa Blanca in his Aston Martin. And Jody Smart (or Bell or Kirby) – Darren Kirby’s former girlfriend has boasted of the £13 million she earned as director of Continental Wealth Management.

    Sipping champagne while publicising her fashion empire on Youtube

    Jody now runs a swish ocean-front restaurant in Calpe with fiance Franco Pearson – seemingly untroubled by the appalling trail of devastation left behind her in the wake of the Continental Wealth Management tragedy.

    But the millions made by the scammers at Continental Wealth Management pale into insignificance when compared to the fortunes made by life offices Old Mutual International, SEB and Generali.

    Not a hint of regret for OMI’s actions – or shame at his broken promises.

    Peter Kenny did promise to pay compensation to OMI’s victims. But this was just a ruse to get me to take down my blogs about OMI so that the IPO would earn him and his accomplices more £ millions.

    The Spanish regulator has made it clear it is a criminal offence to sell insurance “bonds”.

    No firm with a conscience or any professional ethics should ever use OMI, SEB or Generali. Anyone caught mis-selling such insurance bonds in Spain is committing a criminal offence and can face jail. As most advisory firms in Spain are still doing so vigorously and unashamedly (with the same old lame excuse that such bonds are “tax efficient”), the Spanish jails are likely to get pretty crowded in the not-too-distant future.

    Spain is highly motivated to protect British expats who retire on Spanish soil – and is now learning how deeply dishonest and disloyal British “chiringuitos financieros” (the Spanish regulator’s term for financial scammers) are.

    But how do people avoid getting scammed from now on?

    Part of the problem is knowing what questions to ask – and then being able to understand the answers. Unfortunately, Stephen Ward was the exception to the rule – since he was highly qualified and his firm – Premier Pension Solutions – was authorised to provide investment advice.

    1. Check that the firm is authorised (regulated; licensed). If investment advice is given, make sure the firm has an investment license: don’t be fooled into believing that an insurance license is enough. It isn’t.
    2. Check that the adviser is qualified to give financial advice. He or she must provide evidence of any qualifications claimed. If the relevant institute does not show the qualification, then the adviser is not qualified – no matter what exams may have been passed previously.
    3. Don’t get talked into an insurance bond (aka “life bond” or portfolio bond). They are expensive and unnecessary – and only serve to pay the adviser a fat commission.
    4. Don’t let an adviser invest your funds into expensive, risky assets which are only there to pay fat, undisclosed commissions FROM YOUR MONEY.

    Lastly, make sure you get everything – all costs, fees, charges and commissions – in writing. DON’T GET SCAMMED LIKE THE CONTINENTAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT VICTIMS. They will all give you exactly the same advice.