(image of Peter Hardy)
It has been revealed that Surrenda Link Mortgage Holding Limited, now SLM Group, gave 40 million Euros in Spanish tax evading mortgage loans.
The firm Blake Morgan assisted Surrenda-link Mortgage Holding Limited, a mortgage originator, in obtaining a €40 million ring-fenced Spanish asset funding facility.
For its part, Pinsent Masons, a London based banking team, advised Via Capital Limited, in its capacity as arranger of a €40 million secured loan facility to finance a pool of ‘cash release’ mortgages originated by Surrenda-link Mortgage Holdings Limited.
SLM then employed local IFAs, such as Hamiltons (pictured), to peddle this toxic waste in the Spanish Costas.
Nothing new under the sun save for the exceptionally high size of the lending.
Surrenda-Link Mortgages was also a supplier of Traded Endowment Policies (TEPs) to the Premier Low Risk Fund part of the infamous Premier Group. The real value of these policies is uncertain, but some suspect that they were worth far less than that claimed by the Fund.
Yet another case of misconduct involving the Isle of Man based Premier Group and its portfolio of Ponzi Scheme type funds conspiring with affiliates to employ unlicensed, bogus “financial advisors” to misrepresent and mis-sell their poisonous garbage to vulnerable, elderly people.
The lies that were published to part people from their money is quite staggering.
Surrenda Link Mortgages and the Premier Group (who supplied the useless investment funds to fleece their victim’s cash) employed, unlicensed and unqualified amateurs who they then described in writing as “professional” investment advisors.
The Premier Group flouted due diligence and issued “eligible introducer certificates” to their incompetent “agents” entering into employment contracts to pay them undisclosed commissions via a network of Caribbean shell companies. This “income” is taxable in Spain and is now a matter for the Spanish tax authority to investigate.
Given that all Premier’s funds are classified under the Isle of Man “Experienced Investor Fund” (EIF) scheme and are only available to high net worth, professional investors it is ludicrous that Premier’s directors should appoint complete amateurs to sell these funds to financially inexperienced pensioners.
Like all Ponzi Schemes Premier’s various “investment funds” provide the fund directors with generous salaries and their bogus “agents” with substantial (but secret) commissions – these “funds” seldom provide any financial benefit for the ill-fated “investors” who invariably end up losing a large amount of their life savings – if not their homes!
The only defence the “agents” have in these cowardly frauds is that because they were ignorant of matters involving financial products they did not know what they were doing and only repeated the deceptions and falsifications appearing in Surrenda Link Mortgages and Premier Group’s glossy sales brochures. Premier’s defence is even more ludicrous as the directors claim that it is the elderly people who employed their “agents” and that it is the pensioners who are at fault and not Premier!
Congratulations and thanks to the indefatigable Antonio Flores for his efforts in helping to bring these matters into the open.
It is one thing to bring these matter into the open but it is a completely other thing to get these criminals convicted.
There does not seem to be definite way forward, just a lot of talk and expectations…
Is there actually in all these years ONE case been tried and punished?