From OffshoreAlert

The collapse of a fraudulent litigation funding group known as Buttonwood Legal Capital, Argentum Litigation and Centaur Litigation illustrates that you can’t rely on anyone but yourself to protect your interests.

Investors were swindled out of £97 million by Briton Brendan Terrill, New Zealander Christopher Keats and others using an array of companies that were domiciled in various countries, including Australia, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Jersey, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

Investors would no doubt have been reassured by the involvement of several well-known individuals and companies who were identified in various documents as providing services to the group. These included retired London High Court Judge ‘The Rt. Hon. Sir’ David Keene, auditing firms BDO and Ernst and Young, insurance broker AON, banker Standard Chartered Bank, law firms such as Bristows and Carey Olsen, and ‘professional’ directors and corporate service providers such as John Wetherall, Peter Rioda, and Andrew Pollard, the latter two of whom help to manage the Sanne Group, which claims to be “one of the leading independent fiduciary services companies operating in Europe, Asia and the Middle East”.

Assuming they’re all honest, why couldn’t they spot a fraud that took OffshoreAlert seconds to detect?

“It’s enlightening,” said OffshoreAlert’s owner and editor, David Marchant. “This group was littered with red flags, including the offer of double-digit annual returns ‘guaranteed’ by insurers that, in some cases, did not even exist, yet it still managed to take in tens of millions of pounds from investors and had no shortage of well-known companies providing services to it.”

 

OffshoreAlert exposed the fraud on February 18th, quickly leading to its collapse all around the world. Six days after our article, the Channel Islands Securities Exchange de-listed one of the group’s investment funds, and, within three weeks, the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong had raided the offices of both the group and its independent administrator, The Hong Kong Trust Company. By June, three of the group’s investment funds in the Cayman Islands had applied for liquidation.

Marchant will discuss OffshoreAlert’s investigation into the Buttonwood/Argentum/Centaur Group and show attendees how to identify investment frauds at The 3rd Annual OffshoreAlert Conference Europe, which will be held at The Bloomsbury Hotel in London on November 10-11, 2014.

The theme of the conference is “Financial Intelligence and Investigations”, with an emphasis on offshore finance. There will be 20 sessions for providers, clients and investigators of financial products and services. All with a view to helping them reduce their risk of becoming a victim of fraud and, if that has already happened, providing a road-map to recovering assets.

Sessions will include:

An Investigator’s Guide to Offshore Financial Centres;

Bitcoin: Its Role in Financial Crime & How To Trace Transactions Back to Individuals;

Inside Cayman’s Hedge Fund Industry;

The Channel Islands Stock Exchange Scandal: An Analysis;

How I Caught ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ by the FBI Agent who led the investigation;

How To Detect Investment Fraud 100% of the Time (Or Close To It);

Tracing USD Wire Transfers Through Intermediary Bank Discovery;

How To Obtain Discovery in the USA For Use In Your Foreign Proceeding;

Corruption & Match-Fixing in Football: How Big is the Problem?;

The Lure of the BVI: Why Is It THE Place for Chinese and Other Foreigners?;

Litigation Funding: A Look at the Industry;

Offshore Financial Intelligence Units: Are They Busy & With What Type of Activity?;

The Hunt for Offshore Tax Evaders & Those Who Assist Them;

The Magnitsky Murder: A Window Into Russian Money Laundering;

Europe’s ‘Right to be Forgotten’ Ruling: Will It Allow Reprobates to Conceal Their Pasts From Clients & Investigators?;

Offshore Trusts Gone Bad: How Common Is Dishonesty Among Trustees & What Are Their Methods?;

Russia, Ukraine & Commonwealth of Independent States: The Asset Recovery Landscape; and

Offshore Liquidations & Asset Recovery: Tips For Success

Start planning before you go on your summer holidays. The earlier you register, the better the price. A limited number of Pre-Sale Tickets are available until August 13 for only £545 – a saving of £300 on the regular ticket price. Register here today.

To find out more about The 3rd Annual OffshoreAlert Conference Europe, visit www.OffshoreAlertConference.com