Tag: Transeuro

  • PHILLIP NUNN – SCAM OF THE YEAR – BLACKMORE GLOBAL

    Pension life: Phillip Nunn, cold caller and "fund manager" of the Blackmore Global investment scam, was given the Entrepreneur of the Year Award by JCI Manchester, but this was reversed shortly afterwards.
    Pension Scammer Phillip Nunn receiving an award for “Entrepreneur of the Year”

    Phillip Nunn has been reported to Action Fraud – which John Ferguson of Square Mile Financial Services describes as being “nobody and with no authority” – on numerous occasions by victims of various scams.

    Phillip Nunn, cold caller and “fund manager” of the Blackmore Global investment scam, was given the Entrepreneur of the Year Award by JCI Manchester, but this was reversed shortly afterwards:

    “JCI Manchester have today been made aware that an audit may be being carried out in respect of the Blackmore Global Fund.  This was not information we were privy to before Phillip Nunn was awarded a ‘Manchester Young Talent Award’ this week.

    If such an audit is being carried out, we will await the results of the same and we will consider any other information which comes into the public domain. Pending this, the JCI Manchester board have decided to suspend the award given to Phillip Nunn.”

    Pension life shows letter with MYT Phillip Nunn Award Retraction
    MYT Phillip Nunn Award Retraction

    “An independent panel of judges formed their own view on Phillip Nunn’s submission based solely on the written application received.”

    I would love to read Phillip Nunn’s submission.  It would certainly make very interesting reading.  I doubt it would have included the fact that Nunn and his accomplice Patrick McCreesh were cold callers and lead generators in the Capita Oak/Henley Retirement Benefits/multiple SIPPS/Store First scam – which led to well over 1,000 victims losing over £120 million worth of pensions.

    The Insolvency Service produced a witness statement which stated:

    “Members of CAPITA OAK indicated they were initially contacted by Craig Mason or Patrick McCreesh of Nunn McCreesh of Its Your Pension Ltd and offered pension review services prior to them being referred to JACKSON FRANCIS or Sycamore for the transfer of their pension to CAPITA OAK.

    On 3.3.15 I received an undated letter in which it was stated that Its Your Pension had not traded and was a dormant company and that Nunn McCreesh had traded as an insurance brokerage between 2009 and 2012 when they entered into a verbal arrangement with TRANSEURO where in return for providing pension leads to JACKSON FRANCIS they received a commission from TRANSEURO.

    Nunn McCreesh provided JACKSON FRANCIS with 100-200 leads per month which were provided by email and/or telephone for which they received £899,829.86 from TRANSEURO during the period 26.3.12 to 14.5.14.”

    Phillip Nunn’s lawyers, Slater and Gordon (funny that, also nominated for an award) tried to claim that Nunn McCreesh’s involvement in the Capita Oak scam was “minimal”.  But I wouldn’t describe generating 5,000 leads,  cold calling thousands of victims and being paid nearly £900k “minimal”.

    On the subject of Slater and Gordon, earlier this year they threatened me with defamation proceedings for exposing Nunn’s scamtivities.  It was curious that they couldn’t see any conflict of interest in representing Phillip Nunn when they were also representing the very victims (of Capita Oak) whom he had cold called in the first place.

    Slater and Gordon’s Steve Kunziewicz claimed that “Blackmore Global is a prestigious, multi-asset investment house with over £60 million in assets under management, offering institutional and high net-worth clients access to a wide variety of investment products in order to maximise their returns.”

    But there is no audit for Blackmore Global and only evidence suggesting the fund is invested in toxic, high-risk, illiquid crap including:

    Swan Holding PCC

    Kingston Capital Partners (Belize private equity vehicle controlled by Nunn & McCreesh)

    GRRE Invest

    Spinaris 90 ( UK sports spread betting)

    The Blackmore Global audit was promised more than a year ago but never materialised.  The audit has now been promised “by the end of the year” – but Grant Thornton won’t specify which year.

    However, far from the Blackmore Global fund being aimed at “institutional and high net worth clients”, Phillip Nunn targets low-risk pension savers using a variety of unregulated so-called “advisers” such as David Vilka of Square Mile Financial Services.  Many of the Blackmore Global victims were cold-called and/or introduced by Phillip Nunn’s cold-calling outfit, Aspinall Chase.  Some were transferred to Maltese QROPS run by Integrated Capabilities and Harbour (now taken over by STM) and to Hong Kong.

    Blackmore Global is a UCIS fund – unregulated collective investment scheme.  And it is illegal to promote these to UK retail investors as this was banned by the FCA in 2014.

    I doubt the other nominees and award recipients will appreciate having been listed alongside Phillip Nunn who has a history of promoting other scammers’ pension scams and is now running one himself.  Perhaps JCI Manchester ought to vet candidates for the Manchester Young Talent Awards more carefully in the future.   

     

  • BLACKMORE GLOBAL FUND – ASSET OR BLACK HOLE?

    BLACKMORE GLOBAL FUND – ASSET OR BLACK HOLE?

    Blackmore or Blackhole Global fund

    BLACKMORE GLOBAL FUND – BLACK HOLE?

    A fund like Blackmore Global really ought to be audited as soon as possible – to make sure it isn’t simply a “black hole” into which victims’ hard-earned pensions have sunk.  Numerous worried pension savers are stuck in the Blackmore Global Fund and finding it difficult – if not impossible – to get out.  They are seemingly “locked in” for ten years.

    I WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS MY SINCERE THANKS TO THOSE – INCLUDING IFAs, PENSION TRUSTEE FIRMS AND BLACKMORE GLOBAL VICTIMS – WHO HAVE CONTACTED ME AND SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS, CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS.

    Allegedly, Grant Thornton is working on an audit – and has been doing so since September 2016.  They could probably have audited Microsoft in that time – and squeezed in Amazon on the side during the lunch breaks. Just how difficult can it be to audit a fund which only has a handful of assets in it?

    Originally, the directors of Blackmore Global were Brian Weal, Patrick McCreesh, and Phillip Nunn.  

    Brian Weal – sanctioned by the FSC in 2014 – was also a director of Swan Holdings – the only investment that the Advalorem Value Asset Fund made. Brian Weal was also a director of Advalorem. Advalorem lost most of its money because the investments in Swan Holdings were overvalued. The valuations were supplied by Stuart Black who also provided valuations for a Hedge Fund called Heather Capital which lost $300 million because of overvaluations. Swan Holdings had invested a chunk of cash in Etaireia Investments. Stuart Black was a director of Etaireia Investments. Brian Weal owns a controlling number of shares in Etaireia Investments.  So, make up your own mind as to whether having Weal as a director of Blackmore Global is a good thing or a bad thing – or a “black hole” thing.

    As for Nunn and McCreesh, I will let Leonard Fenton of the Insolvency Service do the talking:

    • Documents and information received from members of CAPITA OAK indicated they were initially contacted by Craig Mason or Patrick McCreesh of Nunn McCreesh of Its Your Pension Ltd and offered pension review services prior to them being referred to JACKSON FRANCIS or Sycamore for the transfer of their pension to CAPITA OAK.
    • On 3.3.15 I received an undated letter in which it was stated that Its Your Pension had not traded and was a dormant company and that Nunn McCreesh had traded as an insurance brokerage between 2009 and 2012 when they entered into a verbal arrangement with TRANSEURO where in return for providing pension leads to JACKSON FRANCIS they received a commission from TRANSEURO.
    • Nunn McCreesh provided JACKSON FRANCIS with 100-200 leads per month which were provided by email and/or telephone for which they received £899,829.86 from TRANSEURO during the period 26.3.12 to 14.5.14.

    So, again, draw your own conclusions about those connected with Blackmore Global.  Nunn and McCreesh generated up to 200 leads a month to pension scammers in relation to a series of pension/investment scams which are now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.  This entailed £120 million worth of pensions being invested in Store First store pods which are now the subject of a winding up petition – and arguably worthless.

    When I first started investigating the Blackmore Global fund in 2016, I started with the brochure which makes all sorts of grand claims: “medium to long-term investment vehicle with a diversified investment portfolio
    under one structure. The Company allocates investment between four distinct protected cells, giving a true
    diversification of assets between property, sustainable, private equity and lifestyle”.  Yeah, right.  But what are the underlying assets?  Where is the audit?

    The Fact Sheet goes on to claim the fund’s NAV is £17.65 million and was launched on 1st May 2014.  So why no audit?  It also claims that the Investment Manager is a firm in Barcelona called Meriden Capital Partners.  I thought it a bit strange that a fund based in the Isle of Man would appoint an investment manager in Spain – especially one without a website.  So I called Meriden Capital Partners and asked them to confirm that they were the investment manager.  They claimed they had never heard of Blackmore Global.  Then one of the partners called me back and told me that some man who didn’t give his name had come to their office and asked them whether they would be interested in being the investment manager for Blackmore Global.

    The partner at Meriden Capital explained that they had declined because they were not licensed to provide investment management advice to a fund – only to private individuals.

    But then I discovered that that hadn’t been entirely true either. Meriden Capital had actually completed an application form to apply to become the investment manager to the fund on 4th April 2014.  So either Meriden Capital was lying or Blackmore Global was lying – or both.

    The Blackmore Global NAV Factsheet also states that there is a ten-year lock-in to the fund.  So why would anyone invest a pension in such a fund?  A pension saver has a statutory right to a transfer and might want to take his PCLS – 25% tax free withdrawal at age 55 – or retire, or even die.  What on earth is the point in using Blackmore Global for a pension at all?  Ever.

    As Grant Thorton is clearly having a little trouble with the audit of a five-cell investment fund, I will lay a wee trail of bread crumbs for them to look at.  Clearly they can’t even find the underlying assets – let alone value them:

    Swan Holdings PCC (controlled by Brian Weal)

    Kingston Capital Partners (Belize private equity vehicle controlled by Nunn & McCreesh)

    GRRE Invest – fund manager for aptly-named GRREIF fund (Green Renewable Redeemable Energy Investment Fund –

    GRRE Investment Fund – suspended by Anguilla FSC. (Brian Weal recently resigned as a director but still holds a controlling interest in the Fund – https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09132685/persons-with-significant-control)

    Spinaris 90 – UK sports spread betting (invisible – and what happened to Aria Invest?)

    Most of the victims of the Blackmore Global fund were initially cold-called by a firm called Aspinal Chase.  And all the victims were advised by unregulated investment advisers Square Mile Financial Services (an insurance license does not cover regulated investment advice).  But more worryingly, all of them were put into a QROPS in Malta or the Isle of Man.  So why were UK residents transferred to an offshore pension at all, and why were most or all of their pension funds invested in a UCIS which is illegal to be promoted to UK residents?

    The list of questions goes on and on.  And here, we get back to whether the unscrambling of these pension and investment scams is more about who you know rather than what you know.  One victim had his pension invested 75% in Blackmore Global and 25% in Symphony.  Symphony was a fund invested in derivatives and highly leveraged.  It was also a sub fund of the Nascent Fund run by Richard Reinert.  Under the Nascent “umbrella” (a structure for wannabe fund managers) was also the Trafalgar Multi Asset fund which was run by XXXX XXXX who was one of the main distributors behind Capita Oak, Henley and Westminster – all of which are being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.

    Now we have gone round in a complete circle.  A catalogue of lies, deception, fraud, mis-selling, negligence and incompetence.

    I don’t envy Grant Thornton (if indeed they are the auditors) because they have got to unscramble this unholy mess. And I strongly suspect that, behind the scenes, there are certain parties who are busting a gut to ensure the audit is never published.  Two of these may well be John Ferguson and David Vilka of Square Mile in the Czech Republic who seem to have a strong vested interest in promoting this black hole of a fund.

    Meanwhile, the longer the victims are held back from transferring out of this toxic swamp of a fund, the more serious the complaints against the various parties involved will be.  These will include the cold-calling scammers; introducers; advisers; pension trustees and insurance companies such as Investors Trust who allowed this investment and the pensions transfers from unlicensed advisers.

    Finally, on the subject of Investors Trust, they showed not a shred of interest in the fact that they had facilitated financial crime in allowing UK residents to have their pensions invested in this UCIS, but when I published a photo of John Ferguson and David Vilka posing as a couple of gaudily-dressed spivs in Las Vegas, Investors Trust objected on the grounds the photograph was their property.

    pension-life.com/top-10-deadliest-pension-scammers-hmrc/

     

     

     

     

  • CAPITA OAK – THE GINGER SCAMMER

    CAPITA OAK – THE GINGER SCAMMER

    In the Capita Oak pension scam, the “Ginger Scammer” – XXXX XXXX – is reported to have earned over £200k in transfer/administration fees alone. It is not known how much he earned in investment introduction commissions.

    The Ginger Scammer can afford to stump up some cash for the benefit of the victims of the Capita Oak and Henley Retirement Benefit Scams. Over a thousand victims are facing the partial or total loss of their pensions and are also now being pursued by HMRC for tax liabilities on the Thurlstone liberation “loans” operated by XXXX XXXX

    Here is the email sent to the lawyers acting for XXXX:

    Dear Dick

    I am setting out below the redacted tax appeal in respect of “Mr. X”.  He had the largest transfer in Capita Oak – and by definition the largest Thurlstone loan (operated by XXXX XXXX and Tom Biggar) and resulting tax demand.
    Mr. X’s case was the subject of a Pensions Ombudsman’s determination where Capita Oak was clearly stated to be a scam.   Undoubtedly the Ginger Scammer is familiar with the Ombudsman’s determination: https://www.pensions-ombudsman.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/PO-3590.pdf
    Further, I am sure you have seen the FCA sanction against IFA Popplewell:
    £128 million worth of pensions investments is an awfully big number and I am sure that after all the money your client earned out of these scams, he can come up with sufficient funds to place in a secure account for the benefit of the victims who are now being pursued by HMRC for tax on the Thurlstone “loans”.  Although it is a matter of public record that XXXX earned well in excess of £200k in transfer fees in Capita Oak alone, it is inevitable that he will also have received some introduction commissions.
    The Thurlstone loans were operated by XXXX XXXX and therefore he must take responsibility for the tax liabilities on behalf of the victims.  Can you please both get back to me by return.  Ignoring this situation and turning your back on the Capita Oak victims is not an option.
    Regards, Angie
    ——————————————————————————————————————————————————-
                                                                                                                                                  

    HMRC Specialist Personal Pension Schemes Services – Attn Lynn Faulkner                                            11 April 2017

    Fitz Roy House

    Castle Meadow Road

    Nottingham NG2 1BD,

    United Kingdom

    Dear Ms Faulkner

    Ref: Mr. X: UTR: 9227156060 – Amount of Assessment: £31,473.89


    Please accept this as the appeal and request for     postponement of the tax sought by HMRC on behalf of the above-named taxpayer in respect of the protected assessment issued.  The grounds are as follows:
     

    1.       Capita Oak was registered by HMRC on 23.7.2012 (PSTR 00785484RM) by Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Transfers of 31 Memorial Road, Worsley and Premier Pension Solutions of Moraira, Spain.  

    2.       Capita Oak was also registered by the Pensions Regulator (PSR12006487) who had placed Ward’s Ark schemes in the hands of Dalriada Trustees – yet allowed him to register a further scheme with no regard to the risk that it might be a scam (as indeed it was).

    4.       This taxpayer – along with 300 other victims – was given the Thurlstone loan on the basis it was definitely not taxable by an individual who purported to be a financial adviser.  Had the victim known this would be treated as an unauthorised payment, he would not have gone ahead with the transfer. 

    5.       The Thurlstone loans were processed by two CII members practising as financial and tax advisors. They would have known there was a risk the loans would constitute unauthorised payments and result in tax assessments by HMRC.  

    6.       Once the transfer request had been signed by the victim, there was nothing further he could have done to influence any further transactions since these would have been outside of his control.  The trustees, Imperial, and the Thurlstone loan company were by now in total control of the transfer, investment and loan.  The victim had zero input or influence over what happened subsequent to the transfer being executed by the negligent ceding providers. 

    7.       There appears to be no evidence whatsoever that Capita Oak was set up for the purpose of providing an income in retirement for the members.  It must be questioned, therefore, whether it even constituted a pension scheme at all – save for the valid HMRC and tPR registration numbers.  As supported by the Insolvency Service’s witness statement, the following are compelling reasons why this was a bogus pension scheme from start to finish:

     ·         The trust deed was forged

    ·         The sponsoring employer – R. P. Medplant Ltd was stated to be in Cyprus

    ·         The sponsoring employer – R. P. Medplant Ltd did not exist – although there was a company registered in Cyprus called R. P. Med Plant Ltd (which was also used for the subsequent Westminster scam).

    ·         The scheme was set up purely as the “super fund” of a bunch of known, serial scammers, to earn investment introduction commissions of 46% out of Store First’s store pods

    ·         The scheme’s own bank – Barclays – didn’t know it was a pension scheme – and when Barclays eventually realised this, they blocked the account

    ·         No arrangements were ever made to communicate with the members.  Once the various scammers in their respective roles had earned their fees and commissions, they all simply walked away and abandoned the scheme and the members

    ·         The transfer administration was carried out by Stephen Ward, Level 6 qualified CII and author of the Tolleys Pensions Taxation Manual.  After the disasters of both Ark and Evergreen, Ward would have known he was condemning all the victims – whether transferring from personal or occupational pensions – to certain financial ruin and potential unauthorised payment charges

    ·         The unauthorised payment charges arose from the Thurlstone loans and the tax should, therefore, be sought direct from the extremely wealthy scammers – not from the victims of the large-scale Capita Oak scam.

    Angela Brooks – Chairman, Pension Life Group Action