Author: Sasha

  • 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 in Spain – Julius Baer

    Fraud in Spain – Julius Baer

    Spain is, sadly, the World’s capital of wealth scamming.  For more than a decade, wealth planning has been perverted and converted into a commission-laden fraud.  This financial crime has relieved thousands of victims of their pensions and life savings.

    Originally a private Swiss bank, Julius Baer now wants to diversify into the Spanish wealth market.  Hopefully, this is very good news.  To date, Spain has been dominated by the dross of the commission churning machine.  Some genuine, professional, qualified, fee-based financial advice in Spain would be welcome and also essential to clean up this crime-ridden territory.

    Julius Baer has created a new team which includes Claudio Beretta and Claudia Linares.  So just to give them a few friendly, helpful tips, here’s my message to them – which I hope they will accept in the spirit in which it is given.

    If this newcomer to the Spanish market can bring proper fee-based financial advice to British expats in Spain, Julius Baer could change financial services the World over. The absurdly-stupid EU regulator: ESMA allows firms with only an insurance-mediation license to provide investment advice on portfolios held within insurance bonds. This, of course, facilitates most of the financial crime in Spain and the rest of Europe.

    This widespread fraud – encouraged and handsomely rewarded by the death offices – oils the wheels of the illegal commission machine. These freely-spinning wheels result in herds of unqualified “advisers” (including drug addicts, convicted killers, prostitutes and fraudsters) conning thousands of victims out of their pensions.

    Julius Baer proudly reports that it has created a new team, headed by Claudio Beretta and Claudia Linares, which includes Jorge Saavedra Doménech and Carlos Navarro Sabán.

    This team is looking to provide services in the fields of wealth planning and wealth management. Julius Baer reports this constitutes;

    “the overall Bank’s strategic conviction to further strengthen their presence in Western Europe and particularly in Spain.”

    Hopefully, Julius Baer will avoid death offices and unlicensed spivs. And, even more essential to the fraud-saturated Spanish market, Julius Baer must make it clear there will be no secret or half-secret commissions involved – and concentrate purely on proper fee-based advice which is qualified and truly independent.

  • Pension Scams Explained – Stage 2

    Pension Scams Explained – Stage 2

    Our last blog in this series recreated the offshore pension scam process. We covered the set up and hard sell.  The slick salesman prepared the unwitting victim and convinced him his pension would be better off out of the UK.

    The silver-tongued spiv, Darren, posing as an adviser, conned his new client with no problem at all.  The poor victim was duped into believing he should transfer his pension into a QROPS – an overseas pension scheme.  The con worked because the experienced scammer pressed all the right buttons:

    Your pension will be looked after better, it will be cheaper to manage, you’ll pay less tax, you won’t lose half of it when you die, you’ll get to choose your own pension investments!

    Of course, the scammer, didn’t point out that once out of the UK, John’s pension would have no protection.  Complete control of the money would be squandered will now lie in the hands of the unqualified, unlicensed scammers.

    The victim, John had stressed:

    I’ve paid tax all my life, so I feel I’ve paid my dues. I definitely don’t want to pay too much once I’m retired because every penny is going to count.

    But sadly he’s played right into the scammer’s hands.  His precious pension will be transferred into a QROPS and then into an insurance death bond:

    John: I worked for thirty years to build up that pension and I don’t want anything to happen to it.

    Darren: So, let’s look at all the ways you can improve your pension and make sure its protected.

    But far, far from improving or protecting the investor’s pension, the scammer has removed the precious retirement fund from the safety of the UK.  He’s sent it off to Malta or Gibraltar and then on to the Isle of Man or Guernsey.  The money is now well beyond the protection of British regulation or compensation. 

    John had stressed how he wanted low risk, but has now signed dozens of forms – and this will guarantee that his pension will be exposed to high risk.  Darren didn’t give him a chance to read or understand these long and complex forms.  And the most important form of all was a blank investment dealing instruction.  Once this has been signed by John, the scammer can copy it dozens of times and invest the pension money in whatever pays the highest commission.     

    Blank dealing instructions

    The whole point of this scam is for the scammer to make money out of the victim by a whole series of hidden commissions.

    Darren: My firm would charge you a small fee for setting up the transfer and then looking after your pension investments moving forwards.

    But what will actually happen is that the scammer will openly charge three or four – or more – percent in set-up fees, plus one or two percent a year service charge.  But, under the table, he will earn a further 7% hidden commission from the death office – such as Quilter International, Utmost International, RL360 or Friends Provident.

    Darren: Right. And then we can start investing your pension and making it grow – so you’ll be able to have a happy and healthy retirement.

    John, and all the other victims, will be a long way from being happy or healthy.  Because the death office has a platform that the scammer will use to pick the highest-commission investments.  So John’s pension fund will be used to line the scammer’s pockets for the next ten years – as he will be stuck in the death bond for that long.

    Commission based

    Investments that pay the highest commissions – such as structured notes and unregulated collective investment schemes – are also the highest in terms of risk.  John’s pension can now only lose money.  And as the value of his hard-earned retirement savings goes down and down, the scammer’s commissions will keep on going up and up.

    John, along with all the other victims, will end up losing part – or all – of his pension.  He may well lose his home, see his marriage break up, develop depression or a life-threatening illness.  He may even take his own life.     

    But John and his dire poverty will be long forgotten by the slick, silver-tongued scammer.  He’ll be busy rubbing his hands with glee at his next batch of victims.  Because there’s plenty of them and this form of pension fraud is showing no sign of slowing down any time soon.

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  • THE BOLLOCKS OF OLD BAILEY

    THE BOLLOCKS OF OLD BAILEY

    I don’t often disagree with highly-regarded pensions expert Henry Tapper.  Too much respect and awe.  But his recent blog: “The Balls of Old Bailey” (about Andrew Bailey) merits a polite argument.  It has made me cross – not cross with Henry, per se.  But cross with the failure of Britain’s culture, government, regulation and legal system to address justice justly (or at all).

    Henry has questioned the point of revisiting the balls-up made by former FCA CEO Andrew Bailey and has suggested that “we need to move on”.

    The point of examining Bailey’s sickening catalogue of balls-ups is that we must make sure it never happens again.  Part of that mission is to follow the example of the criminal justice system: we don’t give convicted criminals a jolly good talking to – or even a good bollocking.  We take away their liberty and put them in prison.  This is called a “deterrent”. 

    What did Old Bailey do that was so bad?  The answer is, indeed, a long list – starting with British Steel, Toby Whittaker’s Park First and Neil Woodford’s Fund, and moving on to London Capital & Finance and a long list of other mini-bond scams – including the Blackmore Bond.  Bailey should have stopped that entire horrific catalogue of investment fraud if he’d been doing his job properly.  He could – and should – have prevented hundreds of thousands of victims from losing their life savings and pensions in all of those investment scams.

    The advantage to be had from putting the bollocks – and preferably the head – of Bailey on the block is to send out a warning to future FCA bosses.  They all need to understand that they are public servants, and that with huge salaries come huge responsibilities.   Current overpaid bosses Nikhil Rathi, Christopher Woolard and Charles Randall must be reminded that running the FCA is a serious public duty – and not just an easy stepping stone to an even bigger and better job (however badly they fail consumers).

    Bailey’s numerous failures were rewarded with an eye-watering salary followed by promotion to governor of the Bank of England.

    But Bailey’s balls-up is by no means unique.  He’s in good company with a whole raft of over-paid public servants who have betrayed the public:

    • Post Office boss Paula Vennells was awarded a CBE for falsely prosecuting hundreds of innocent Post Office subpostmasters for fraud – even though she knew full well they were innocent.  In arguably the biggest scandal of corruption and injustice in British history, Vennells oversaw the wrongful conviction and sometimes imprisonment of 700 victims.  Many of these people were financially ruined, lost their homes and committed suicide.  One pregnant woman was sent to jail, and many marriages and families were destroyed. 
    • Former HMRC boss Dave Hartnett was caught arranging “sweetheart” deals with tax evaders such as Goldman Sax and Vodaphone.  And now he’s “got no shame” (according to Margaret Hodge) in taking up another over-paid job with Deloittes. 
    • Former HMRC boss Lin Homer was rewarded for her vast catalogue of disasters and failures with another huge salary and a £2.2m pension
    Paula Vennells (left), Dave Hartnett (middle), Lin Homer (right)
    Paula Vennells (left), Dave Hartnett (middle), Lin Homer (right)

    But to revert to the failings of Andrew Bailey, Henry has suggested that we need to “move on”.  However, those who have lost their life savings and pensions because of the FCA’s defects will have great difficulty putting their losses and harrowing ordeals behind them.  Living in abject poverty won’t help them forget.  They will certainly never forgive the fact that Andrew Bailey could have prevented them becoming victims of investment scams such as mini bonds, Store First, Park First, the Woodford Fund and Blackmore Global etc.

    Henry’s blog concludes that Andrew Bailey, as Governor of the Bank of England, has a great deal on his plate: cost of living crisis, looming recession and Brexit.  But does anybody seriously think that such a negligent, lazy, incompetent person is capable of dealing with that lot – when he couldn’t even listen to frantic whistleblowers such as Paul Carlier, Mark Taber and Brev at Bond Review who were offering to do his job for him?

    In an entirely different blog, however, Henry talks about the sad case of MP Neil Parish:

    This silly twerp got caught looking at lewd images on his mobile in the House of Commons.  His excuse was that he thought porn was spelled “tractor”.  Parish has now resigned and his political career is almost certainly over.  His wife might also be quite cross.  He probably won’t be rewarded with a promotion, a CBE or any kind of public “moving on”.

    Tractor girl

    What Parish did was foolish.  But he didn’t cost thousands of people their pensions and life savings; he didn’t ruin hundreds of subpostmasters’ lives and send some of them to prison or to their deaths; he didn’t aid and abet hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of tax evasion; he didn’t overcharge millions of taxpayers or lose their records.  

    Parish embarrassed himself and was caught doing something unbelievably silly – that hurt nobody except himself (and his own family).  But the price he will pay for this will be crippling and may have ruined his life.  Meanwhile, Bailey, Vennells, Hartnet and Homer have evaded any kind of sanction and gone on to glittering success, awards and eye-watering pensions.

    Move on?  Anybody?

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  • The Web of Pension Scams

    The Web of Pension Scams

    On the web of pension scams It seems as though criminal convictions against pension scammers might be getting popular. More than a decade has gone by with virtually none of the usual suspects getting jailed – despite a few criminal investigations (that, so far, have not resulted in convictions). Is the system really that hopeless or do these criminals just know how to work it? Probably, both. But is it getting any better?

    Almost all scammers and scams are, in some way, related or connected. If the earliest scammers (circa 2010) had been prosecuted and put behind bars, much of today’s damage could have been prevented.

    Now that there is an intricate web of them passing around their tricks of the trade, it’s no wonder they’ve all been able to bypass the laws and regulations.

    Two scammers have, however, recently been brought to justice:

    Alan Barratt and Susan Dalton have recently been convicted and jailed for a £13m pension fraud – involving alleged pension investments in truffle trees.

    Much of the £13m ended up in the hands of well-known scammer David Austin – who committed suicide after being caught in another pension scam (using his daughter Camilla as the “front man”).

    Susan Dalton & Alan Barratt
    Susan Dalton & Alan Barratt

    The Barratt and Dalton scheme, was also promoted by Julian Hanson – one of the main promoters of the £27m Ark pension scam in 2010/11. Hanson’s vigorous promotion efforts resulted in £5.5m worth of Ark victims (100 in total). One of Hanson’s co-scammers was the notorious Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions who was the “architect” behind the Ark scheme – along with Andrew Isles of Isles and Storer Accountants. Hanson, Ward and Isles were never prosecuted and so went on to operate and promote millions of pounds’ worth of further pension scams – ruining many thousands more lives.

    Ryan Playford
    Ryan Playford

    Sue Dalton, after moving on from the Barratt and Dalton scheme, went to work at Continental Wealth Management in Spain – reporting to head scammer Darren Kirby and his partner Jody Smart (who was the sole director of the company). Dalton’s extensive experience in pension scamming made her a hit at CWM. Ironically, Hanson has not been jailed along with Barratt and Dalton.

    Jumping forward to the present day, another jail sentence has been handed down to drug dealer Ryan Playford. In February 2022, he was convicted and imprisoned for drug-related offences:

    Playford got 15 years for supplying cocaine and canabis. Clearly a wrong-un, and someone who has no respect for the law or for the wellbeing of people’s lives who would inevitably be ruined by drug abuse.

    Drugs

    But what does Playford’s drug conviction have to do with pension scams – you may ask? We have to go back a decade to discover the answer:

    In 2008, Playford and an associate – Natasha Beesley – registered a drug company in Cyprus: R. P. Med Plant. Presumably, the authorities were convinced that by “drugs”, this meant legitimate drugs for medicinal purposes.

    Stephen Ward
    Stephen Ward

    In 2012, however, the pension scammers pounced on this Cyprus company as being the ideal sponsoring employer for another one of Stephen Ward’s pension scams: Capita Oak. Ward and his pension-lawyer friend Alan Fowler, used R. P. Med Plant Limited (Cyprus) as the so-called employer for an occupational scheme – registered by HMRC and the Pensions Regulator.

    Ward and Fowler forged signatures on a trust deed for their new pension scam, and slightly changed the name of the employer to R. P. Medplant Limited (so that nobody could find it easily on the Cyprus Companies House register). It seems likely that Ward and Fowler must have known Ryan Playford somehow, in order to be able to get their hands on his drug company.

    Patrick McCreesh
    Patrick McCreesh

    Capita Oak then became the vehicle for the scamming of 300 victims into investing their entire pensions in Store First store pods. Ward took charge of all the victims’ pension transfers, while another group of scammers took care of the cold calling of thousands of potential victims and signing up of the actual 300 victims.

    Phillip Nunn
    Phillip Nunn

    This group of scammers included Nunn and McCreesh who masterminded the £80m Blackmore Bond and Blackmore Global Fund pension and investment scams.

    Capita Oak’s 300 members were not the only victims invested in Store First store pods. There were thousands more in the Henley Retirement Benefits Scheme and various SIPPS including Carey (now Options and owned by STM), as well as Berkeley Burke and Rowanmoor. There have so far been no convictions – other than Playford’s for drug dealing.

    Store First

    This interconnected web of lies and deceit will keep on spreading unless these criminals actually fear the consequences of their actions. Let’s keep the convictions coming and not just save them for drug lords.

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  • Boris on Crime (I see no fraud!)

    Boris on Crime (I see no fraud!)

    At the end of January 2022, Boris Johnson claimed he had reduced crime by 14%. 

    Boris shocked a lot of people with this figure. But, apparently, he wasn’t talking about fraud.  He’d forgotten that even some of his own constituents had been defrauded into the Ark pension scam (and that he had promised to “sort it out” back when he was Mayor of London). 

    Sir David Norgrove, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, came back correcting the PM’s claims. He revealed there has been a 14% INCREASE in crime – including a 47% RISE in fraud and computer misuse.

    Sir David Norgrove
    Sir David Norgrove

    Norgrove headed up the Pensions Regulator (which used to be known as OPRA) from 2005 to 2011. He had issued dire warnings to pension providers against handing over pensions to scammers – saying that just ticking boxes (without checking the receiving scheme was bona fide) would lead to a huge rise in pension fraud. He was, of course, ignored – especially by Standard Life, Aviva, Scottish Widows and Prudential. 

    Norgrove’s correction of Blonde Boris’ clumsy gaff is not surprising at all. This government’s attention and time spent into looking into fraud has been somewhere between minimal and non-existent. Combine that with putting an utter nitwit in charge of the FCA, and you have the perfect breeding ground for an explosion of fraud and scams. 

    It is disgraceful to know that this government’s focus on crime ignores fraud as though it were irrelevant. This huge aspect has been – and is still – affecting hundreds of thousands of people. I suppose our ill-informed P.M. thinks the person in the black balaclava seems a lot more dangerous than the one in the designer suit and tie. 

    But we know the damage these fraudsters can cause.  Such misinformation being spread is highly dangerous; leaving consumers with a false sense of security, and making them even more likely to be scammed.

    Terrence Wright & his wife
    Terence Wright & his wife

    Let’s take Terence Wright for example. Wright’s activities in the pension scam world flourished in 2014 and 2015. Although he most definitely didn’t look like a typical burglar, he caused the destruction of millions of pounds of pensions across the UK.

    Wright had an unregulated Spanish firm called Commercial Land & Property Brokers (CL&P) which introduced hundreds of people to the pension SIPP provider Carey Pensions. From here he invested the victims’ money into Store First and Australian farmland via Gas Verdant where the money will have dwindled away into nothing.

    One victim, Russell Adams, got his destroyed pension reinstated in the Appeal Court. But thousands more are still left stranded with illiquid and sometimes worthless pension assets. 

    There are many more examples: Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund (in an STM QROPS and invested in Dolphin Trust); Blackmore Bond, Blackmore Global (in STM, Optimus, EFPG, Quartermaine and GFS QROPS); Forthplus SIPP which has just gone bust and is full of toxic investments. The list is endless. 

    This type of fraud is committed against British victims routinely.  The crime goes on (and on!) in the UK and offshore. By destroying pension funds with toxic investments, the fraudsters earn millions in hidden commissions. Which is supposed to be illegal. Perhaps Boris the Johnson will wake up to this fact one of these days.  Or perhaps this is as unlikely as him using a hairbrush. 

    Bojo with ridiculous hair