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A CARBON credits conman who left investors with losses of millions of pounds has been banned from acting as a company director for the next 11 years.
Steven Sulley, 35, was behind Pure Carbon Limited, which raked in more than £ 3 million from investors who were told to expect big profits, even though there was no way to turn their carbon credits back into cash.
This was not Sulley’s first scam. In 2012, I warned that he had set up Carbon Green Capital Limited, which made similar false claims.
It was closed down by the High Court in 2014 after investigators from the Government-run Insolvency Service f ound i t had claimed investments could triple in value. A judge described the company, which attracted almost £1 million from investors, as simply ‘fraudulent’.
The Mail on Sunday reported at the time that Sulley had moved on to Pure Carbon, and in 2016 the High Court ordered it into liquidation too.
Earlier this month, the liquidators reported that their own enquiries into the company’ s finances had been delayed as records were in the hands of the police.
Two years ago, Sulley demanded that The Mail on Sunday remove my 2014 report from its website, claiming it was libellous. Saying that he had consulted his solicitor, Sulley wrote: ‘We feel this article defamatory to me suggesting that I am a “career conman” which couldn’t be further from the truth, is inaccurate and thus violates the defamation act 2013.’ We politely declined.
Sulley now describes himself as an art dealer, and last June set up WH Online Limited, linked to the Woodbury House art gallery in Soho in London. Woodbury House describes itself as ‘a specialist art investment consultancy’.
He resigned as a director a few weeks ago, knowing that he was about to be banned, but according to Companies House records he is still the controlling shareholder.