Scammer jailed – hip hip hooray! – scammer jailed

SCAMMER JAILED! Hip hip hooray! we say. What a great start to the new year. Neil Bartlett, 53, of Delamere Road, Ainsdale, used £4.5m of his victims’ money to fund an extravagant lifestyle of foreign travel, top hotels and gambling.

Bartlett was handed an eight year sentence for his involvement in the multi-million pound investment fraud dating back from 2013. He scammed 27 victims out of a collective sum of £4.5 million, some of which had been his childhood friends. He didn´t stop there, he also took power of attorney for a vulnerable elderly victim and defrauded her as well!

As is the case with many scams, the victims are unlikely to recoup any of the funds they entrusted to him. Bartlett is said to have spent the hard-earned funds on prostitutes, escorts and expensive holidays. The victims, all of whom knew him on a personal level, are disgusted at his behaviour and were glad to see this scammer jailed.

Here in the Pension Life office, we are always pleased to hear that a scammer has been jailed. The only shame, is that we just don´t hear the words enough. It would be great if we could write blogs that contain the words SCAMMER JAILED on a daily basis.  But sadly it is just not the case.

The SFO have a long list of scammers that are ´under investigation´, however, we rarely hear that they have been jailed.  Whilst we read stories of people who house the homeless being jailed!

An example of this is Peter and Sara Moat of Fast Pensions  – which was wound up back in May 2018. We know they fraudulently took £21m from their victims. We know they did not invest it in the interest of their victims. We know they invested the funds into other businesses they own. We know that they reside in Denia, where their daughter goes to a private school. We know all this – AND the SFO knows all this – yet the Moats are still free to live a lavish lifestyle whilst their victims go without a pension and some face losing their homes as well as bankruptcy.

I´m sure the victims of the Fast Pensions and Blu loans scams would find some solace in reading the words – “scammer jailed” in relation to both Peter Moat and Sara Moat. But I´m not sure if they ever will – and that makes us sad and bloody angry.

What is even sadder is that the big boys, the serial scammers like Stephen Ward, XXXX XXXX, Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh are still allowed to roam free despite their numerous scams being under investigation by the SFO for some years now. It would make our year if we could write “Stephen Ward – SERIAL SCAMMER JAILED”. However, at least we can confirm that Ward was banned from being a pension trustee at the end of 2018. So I guess the SFO is doing something – however small.

Thousands of victims and hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of pension money has been fraudulently taken from the victims of scam schemes sold by the above-named scammers. Schemes like Capita Oak, Blackmore Global Fund and the Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund.

In fact, the CEO of STM Gibraltar (the facilitators of the Trafalgar QROPS scam), Alan Kentish was recently released without charge after his arrest, and was fully backed by the STM board. Despite clear evidence of the part he played in the now suspended – £20 million – Trafalgar QROPS pension scam, which he facilitated with XXXX XXXX.

AND to rub salt into the wounds of the Trafalgar victims, STM group went on to announce record profits in 2017 and to announce they will be offering SIPPS products as well.

Scammer jailed ? ? ? – not here I´m afraid!

All we can do is make a very loud suggestion that STM Group Gibraltar – STM Fidecs – Alan Kentish – should all be given a VERY wide berth when considering a change of pension trustee – as from past evidence they are not to be trusted!