WE'RE WATCHING YOU

THE Financial Conduct Authority has won High Court orders forcing four individuals and one company to repay investors who were persuaded to buy shares in an illegal offering. Last Wednesday’s judgment orders Lee Skinner to pay £3.61 million, while Karen Ferreira must hand over £2.79million.

The pair were directors of Our Price Records, whose shares were marketed to the public with false claims. The shares were promoted through sales agents

Clive Mongelard,

Tyrone Miller and

Venor Associates

Limited, who must pay back a total of

£1.2 million.

Hertford-based

Venor is run by Mongelard, who has also used the names Clive Harris, John Harris and Chris Harris in earlier scams. The court found that Venor and Mongelard offered investment advice without authorisation, as well as making false or misleading statements to investors, who were told that Skinner was a personal friend of Richard Branson.

Shares were marketed for over a year, from October 2014, but investors were not told that half their money went in commission to sales agents. A large part of the balance was funnelled to Skinner through two companies that fronted for him. Mongelard has been involved in a series of investment scams and dodgy broking firms. I first warned against him in May 2014, when he had been a salesman with Green Planet Investment, raising funds for leisure projects in Brazil. Investors lost millions of pounds, and the projects never materialised. A year later, I warned Mongelard had opened his own company to sell investments in rare earth metals. Again investors lost heavily.

Marketing shares and offering investment advice without authorisation by the FCA is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in prison. However, the FCA has not prosecuted any of the offenders. Mongelard and Miller remain on the FCA’s public register of advisers, without a stain on their character. Both are described as no longer needing regulatory approval, allowing them to tell victims the watchdog is happy with whatever they are doing – further evidence the FCA register has been downgraded to being not only feeble but actually dangerous.