Since 2013, thousands of clients of Planet Pensions – previously known as Aktiva Wealth Management and Square Mile International Financial Services – have been scammed out of their pensions.
John Ferguson and David Vilka of Planet Pensions (Square Mile/Aktiva) advised UK residents to transfer their pensions into QROPS including:
- GFS SCHEME 2 SUPERANNUATION SCHEME 2 (HONG KONG)
- QUARTERMAINE (HONG KONG)
- EFPG (GIBRALTAR)
- OPTIMUS (MALTA)
- KRESTON (ISLE OF MAN)
- HARBOUR PENSIONS (MALTA)
- PANTHEON (GIBRALTAR)
- CORINTHIAN (GIBRALTAR)
The clients were conned into these transfers on the basis that it would be in the interests of making their pensions perform better. It was also claimed that the clients would pay less tax. None of the promises, assurances and advice was true:
| LIES TOLD TO VICTIMS BY PLANET PENSIONS | THE TRUTH |
| “A QROPS falls outside the Lifetime Allowance rules for UK pension schemes. If your pension grows to above 1.25m you will suffer a 55 percent extra tax charge” | Most of Planet Pensions’ victims had pensions which were below £50k in value and were never likely to reach anywhere near £1.25m in value – so this would never apply. |
| “At age 55 you will be able to access a cash lump sum” | Had the victims left their pensions in the UK, they’d have accessed the 25% tax-free lump at age 55 |
| “The QROPS is of course approved by HMRC” | HMRC never “approves” any QROPS schemes. They register them – there is no approval. |
| “Your pension will be invested in funds which are not traditionally available in the UK, giving you access to a broad range of asset classes” | There is a good reason why risky, unregulated assets are not available in the UK – it is illegal to promote them to retail investors. Victims would be likely to lose their pensions (which is exactly what happened) |
| “With a wide range of high growth asset classes utilised, the high performance funds chosen by our investment team are ideally suited to your pension investment” | None of the high-risk/high-commission assets were suitable for pension investments – and they all failed (destroying thousands of victims’ pensions) |
| “The investment enables you to invest in investment funds which will contain a carefully managed risk assessed portfolio” | There was nothing to “manage” – once the pension money was invested in the assets, the money was trapped and would inevitably be lost |
| “A QROPS allows a wider choice of investments, which gives you the potential to grow the fund further than your current scheme” | This is true! Many QROPS allow fraudulent investments such as those chosen specifically for the high commissions paid to the scammers |
Of course, none of this – either the transfer (by a UK resident) to a Hong Kong QROPS – or the subsequent high-risk investments, was in the interests of the victims. This was only in the interests of the scammers who earned commissions from the unregulated investments. These included:
- Blackmore Global PCC Ltd
- Swan Holding PCC Ltd
- Christianson Property Capital Ltd
- SN Granite Investments Global
- Drake Incubator PCC – GRRE
- EcoVista PLC
- Curzon Alternative
In the GFS QROPS scheme in Hong Kong, Planet Pensions worked with a variety of unregulated “introducers” to help recruit victims. These included Scott Campbell of 3V Financial, Andrew Blackburn of St James International, and Aled Williams of Nicholas Street Tax.
The QROPS application forms, which showed which adviser each victim had appointed, were forged to show the name of the introducer rather than the name of the adviser. This was done by removing the adviser declaration page, and inserting a new page showing the introducer as the adviser – rather than Aktiva Wealth Management (one of Planet Pensions’ former names).
Planet Pensions also often claimed that Aktiva Wealth Management was acting under the regulation of Paul Brown’s Worldwide Broker – using the Dutch AFM as the regulator. Paul Brown has strenuously denied that he ever allowed Aktiva (Planet Pensions) to act as an Appointed Representative of Worldwide Broker.
John Ferguson and David Vilka of Planet Pensions (aka Aktiva, aka Square Mile) have clearly worked closely with Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh of Blackmore Bond and Blackmore Global infamy. Both Blackmores are being wound up – causing hundreds of victims to lose over £90 million of pensions and life savings. It is clear both investments were run fraudulently by Nunn and McCreesh (both of whom have now been bankrupted).
Ferguson and Vilka also worked closely with Manish Gambhir of MG Finance and Christianson Property Capital (yet another failed mini bond). Other associates of Ferguson and Vilka were Toby Barnes and Tom Fraser of EFPG in Gibraltar, as well as Mark Donnelly of Brite Advisors in Australia, South Africa and the USA.
Ali Hussain of The Sunday Times covered the Mark Donnelly and Brite Advisors story in 2024:
“Missing expat pensions: Some 10,000 people put their money into a financial firm run by advisers who investigators say have transferred millions to their own accounts. Bosses at Brite – led by Mark Donnelly – transferred millions of pounds to their personal accounts or other companies.”
Ali Hussain – Saturday April 27 2024, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times – wrote that:
“The savers are victims of a network of financial advisers working for a firm called Brite Advisory Group, which is run by Mark Donnelly, a convicted fraudster who stole football merchandise relating to David Beckham. Donnelly’s right-hand man was a financial adviser who fled UK after duping a 91-year-old dementia sufferer out of £170,00. Investigators claim that instead of investing savers’ money in pensions, bosses at Brite took millions of pounds and transferred it to their personal accounts or other companies they ran around the world. Some of it is alleged to have been used to buy rival businesses; some was used for personal loans to directors and their wives. About £250,000 was allegedly used to buy two Porsches.”