A villa in the sun for boss of £21m scam
THe director of a rogue pension scheme that abused millions of pounds of savers’ money is living in luxury – while victims struggle to pay the heating bills.
Sara Moat, 43, was the director of ‘unscrupulous’ Fast Pensions which used cold-calling and misleading claims about retirement funds to persuade 520 individuals to transfer their pension savings worth £21million into one of its 15 schemes in 2012 and 2013.
Many investors have since lost all their retirement cash and, as one victim put it, had their ‘future robbed’.
Fast Pensions and five related firms were wound up this year after an investigation by the Insolvency Service under Project Bloom, a crossindustry taskforce involving Government departments, regulators and police.
Investigators found Fast Pensions misused funds, misrepresented the schemes and that its advisers failed to disclose the high risk and illiquid investments they made or the benefits members would be entitled to.
At least £4million was used to pay commissions and the remaining funds were largely used to make loans to companies and other entities that appear to be connected with Fast Pensions and trustees of the schemes, a report said.
Fast Pensions failed to keep adequate accounting records or co-operate fully with the investigation, making it impossible to determine the full value of the members’ funds that have been lost.
Neighbours told the Mail that Mrs Moat lives with her husband Peter in a two bedroom villa with a pool in the upmarket Spanish town of Denia on the Mediterranean.
The home is listed in Mr Moat’s mother’s name. Mrs
‘Robbed of their future’
Moat is also named with her husband as an executive of the firm Deyse Investments.
By contrast, Maria McCulloch, from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, turned 65 in March and had planned to retire after 43 years work but cannot because she had £65,000 of her savings in Fast Pensions.
When she moved her pension in 2012 she was told by an ‘independent consultant’, who charged her a £1,000 set-up fee, that she would receive £80,000 at retirement. ‘There was a lot of paperwork and it all looked legitimate, but now the money’s gone,’ she said.
Mrs McCulloch has been forced to stay on three days a week as an administrator in the procurator fiscal’s office.
‘It’s incredibly frustrating to think that those behind this scam are still living the good life while I am struggling on,’ she said.
‘I know I’m not alone. A lot of people caught up in this scheme have been robbed of their future.’
David Hope, chief investigator for the Insolvency Service, said ‘unscrupulous’ Fast Pensions had paid ‘scant regard’ to members who had worked long and hard to put money away for their retirements.
‘They used unsavoury tactics to attract members and failed to paint the full picture as to what would really happen with their savings.’
Mrs Moat did not respond to requests for comment.