Scammers who raked in millions of pounds from bogus investment opportunities have been banned from running companies.
The British government Insolvency Service has closed three separate scams that duped investors out of more than £10 million.
Property investment group Hometrader and Newbury Venture Capital Ltd, which offered investment schemes such as the Privilege Club, collected around £9 million.
The club had nearly 500 investors who ploughed £9.3 million towards 25% deposits on buy to let property. The balance of the purchase price was mortgaged on the promise that the deposit would be returned as a discount on the value of the property.
The company could offer no evidence any investor received any cash back.
Another 228 members paid £5,000 each to the companies for access to a web site offering investment property for joint venture projects.
Investors were told that they were the sole partners with Newbury Venture Capital, but the company introduced several investors to each project.
The Insolvency Service also explained none of the properties were independently valued and their prices were inflated.
The companies were wound up in the public interest.
No cheer for wine investors
Westminster Fine Wines director Jeff Berrill was disqualified as a director for 12 years after the firm collapsed with debts of £233,000 when the value of wine investments dropped by up to a third.
Investors paid for fine wines to be stored in a bonded warehouse, but the Insolvency Service found no evidence that the wine was purchased.
The company was liquidated in the public interest.
Investigators argued Berrill misled investors, failed to keep proper accounting records and was unfit to run a company.
Huge mark-ups on worthless carbon credits
Directors Sami Raja, Sandeep Singh Dosanjh and Manjeet Matharu were disqualified for a total of 43 years between them for misselling carbon credit certificates to investors.
Their company, Kendrick Zale, bought the credits for between 67p and 87p and sold them on for between £160 and £312 each.
Investors paid them £900,000 for the certificates, which effectively had no value as there is no trading market for individuals, said the Insolvency Service.
“This business was set up for deception and personal gain at the expense of innocent investors,” said registrar Clive Jones.
The company was put into compulsory liquidation by the High Court.
