WE’RE WATCHING YOU

A CAREER conman who offered big profits from trading in gold has been banned from acting as a company director for the next 14 years after helping to cheat investors out of £360,000.

Benedict Moruthoane, who also uses at least three other names, was a behind-thescenes boss of Sutter Capital Limited, which offered returns of 15 to 22 per cent from what were said to be successful gold deals in Africa.

The business operated illegally, with no authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority, and it ceased trading at the end of 2018. Investigators from the Insolvency Service found that its sales material contained inaccurate claims, and high-risk investment bonds were sold to unsuitable investors. The company’s accounts showed almost all its money was spent on salaries, expenses and sales commissions, with no trace of gold trading.

On paper, Sutter Capital was run by its sole director Eugeniu Sculea, 33, from Moldova. Last year, he accepted an 11-year ban as a director. Now the High Court has ruled that Moruthoane, 50, who has British and Lesotho nationality, acted as a hidden director of the company. His 14year ban from boardrooms began last Tuesday.

Moruthoane, from Finchley in North London, has been on my radar for more than a decade.

He set up the Bordeaux Wine Company and was its sole director until signing it over to a colleague who later told me she never, in fact, ran the business, explaining, ‘I remained an employee and had no operational control.’ In 2019, I reported that wine worth millions of pounds was unaccounted for, and the company collapsed.

Meanwhile, Moruthoane had set up International Wine Commodities Limited, part of a group of three businesses which sold fine wine as an investment. They traded for three years and reportedly raked in £2million but only ever bought one case of wine. In 2011, Moruthoane was jailed for seven and a half years for fraud.