By Chris Lang
On 31 May 2022, a jury at Southwark Crown Court convicted Andrew Skeene and Omari Bowers of scamming investors out of £37 million. Skeene and Bowers ran a teak plantation investment scam in Brazil called Global Forestry Investments.
REDD-Monitor first wrote about Global Forestry Investments in 2014:
The company promised 10% per year returns on a minimum investment of £5,000. Investors were told they were leasing a plot of land in a teak plantation in Brazil.
Global Forestry Investments specifically targeted pensioners. A corporate brochure offers the option to “Invest via your pension”, and states the following on “compliance”:
GFI complies with the laws relating to UK personal pensions, so the investment may be placed in a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension) or a SSAS (Small Self-Administered Scheme). GFI also complies with the laws relating to Irish Self-Managed Pensions. The arrangements for ownership overcome the legal and practical problems relating to the holding of overseas property in a pension.
Global Forestry Investments, Emerald Knight, and Title Trustees
Other companies involved in the scam have appeared several times on REDD-Monitor, including Emerald Knight, a boiler room scam that has since disappeared. Title Trustees, part of the Hutchinson & Co. Trust Company Limited, was also involved. Citadel Trustees is another part of the Hutchinson & Co. Trust Company. In 2014, Citadel Trustees changed its name to Highpoint Trustees. The company is currently under investigation by the Financial Compensation Scheme.
The Insolvency Service started an investigation into Global Forestry Investments following the company’s compulsory liquidation in 2014. The Insolvency Service found that £13 million from the sale of plots in the plantations in Brazil was paid into bank accounts owned by Skeene and Bowers. One year after they handed over their money, most investors received no further payments from Global Forestry Investments.
Skeene and Bowers: Criminal investigation, director bans, charged, and convicted
In February 2015, the Serious Fraud Office announced that it had, “opened a criminal investigation into alleged fraud concerning Global Forestry Investments”:
In 2018, Skeene and Bowers were both banned from controlling or managing a company for 10 years.
In 2019, the Serious Fraud Office charged Skeene and Bowers:
On 31 May 2022, the jury in Southwark Crown Court convicted Skeene and Bowers of three counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of misconduct in the course of winding up a company.
“An intricate web of money transfers”
Global Forestry Investments had three teak tree investment schemes in Brazil, called Belem Sky Plantation, Para Sky Plantation, and Para Grosso Sky Plantation. The company scammed 2,000 investors in the UK and Sweden.
In a statement, Lisa Osofsky, Director of the Serious Fraud Office, said:
“Our international investigation exposed an intricate web of money transfers, forged documents and invented identities used to scam pensioners and savers out of their money under the false pretence of environmental protection.”
The Serious Fraud Office put out a map of the companies and bank accounts involved in the scam:
The Paradise Papers leak reveals that Intrinsbit Capital Ltd was registered in the tax haven of Saint Kitts and Nevis on 13 February 2014.
Skeene and Bowers will be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on 14 June 2022.
They have ruined peoples lives, their lives should be ruined, but I suspect they will do a couple of years each, in jail, come out and go and live the rest of there lives in luxury with the parts of the money they managed to hide away. Does this mean all of us investors will get their investment money back?
I concur with Mr F ludgate comments and would like to agree that we Do appear to be the best place on earth to conduct your Preferred Scam , WATCH THIS SPACE .
I’d be interested to know the outcome of the sentencing at Southwark Crown Court on 14th June. I was done by them on a global forex scam (GFXI) also run from Dubai. One they got away with millions like GFI.
11 years! How many people did they scam with GFXI?
Anyone heard of Living Investments and Nick Durrant? looks to be eerily similar