Lender Nykredit, from its Marbella office, and its business partner Sydbank, from an illegal Fuengirola office, persuaded British pensioners to take out offshore companies as part of a IHT tax avoidance scheme.
The “Equity Release Package” or Equity Release Product, as was named by the advertising literature, consisted on a loan granted by Nykredit -Christel Mark Hansen acting for the latter- guaranteed on a Spanish property, the proceeds of which loan were invested via Sydbank in Switzerland -with the assistance and supervision of Mads Petersen-
Sydbank would provide a guarantee to its business partner Nykredit for 33% of the loan, who would pay for the privilege, so as to ensure that the lender was fully covered.
To achieve full anonymity, Sydbank in Switzerland offered offshore company to shelter the investments and make it more difficult for the Spanish Tax Office to find out the whereabouts of the loan proceeds, now presumably invested.
Nykredit and Sydbank sold this product as a legal, lawful manner to achieve state-of-the-art wealth planning for retired British property owners in Spain.
The highly opaque offshore companies were incorporated in Belize and had directors posted in New Zealand.
The use of offshore shell companies, to conceal beneficial owners and company activities, is a well-established manoeuvre used by fraudsters, drug dealers and money launderers.
Places of choice include Belize (as in this case), located on the Caribbean coast, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgen Islands (BVI). All offer rapid company incorporation, low annual fees and a very high level of privacy protection regarding the names of beneficial owners, directors and shareholders…
Secrecy at all levels is the stock-in-trade of these places with even their governments having NO idea who actually owns the tax-free companies or what they do. The only significant information supplied to the official registry is the name of the company’s agent – one of the local firms who arrange incorporations and collect the hefty annual fees – and they rigidly refuse to release further facts to anyone.
The scale of this scam is almost unbelievable; on the BVI alone there are now more than 1million registered companies, more than 30 companies per head of population, and 5,000 new ones being registered every month!
As readers of these columns are already aware; another favourite trick is to register a company on the Isle of Man under the name “Premier Group” (famous for its tax evasion SITIRS product) and then register an identical “Premier Group” in the Caribbean. This enables the directors to transfer blame/responsibility for any visible misconduct to a highly secretive jurisdiction almost impenetrable to investigation.
TOXIC PLACES! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Is it more than a coincidence that Sydbank (Schweiz)/Nykredit Realkredit AND the Premier Group and SLM (Surrenda Link Mortgages) Ltd (the later two to attend trial on the 14/th June 2016 to answer charges of operating in Spain without legal permit and orchestrating the marketing and sale of an alleged illegal financial product for IHT evasion) chose to use secretive offshore companies to assist in involving British pensioners in IHT tax evasion schemes?
No doubt the lawyers will be taking note from the “Panama Papers” and speculating WHERE Sydbank in Switzerland and Mads Petersen invested the loan proceeds resulting from this, errr .. monkey business.
Hopefully for all the unfortunate people involved NOT in a Premier Group Fund!
These “equity release products” were NOT primarily designed to enable the unsuspecting victims “release” some “equity” from their homes – or to evade paying inheritance tax. All that is “marketing” bullshxt to help spivs get their hands on YOUR money to invest in one of THEIR useless “investment funds”.
By ploughing YOUR money into the THEIR “funds” a whole army of blood sucking leeches are able to profit – including the conmen who sold the “product”, the charlatans who run the “funds”, freeloading accountants, lawyers and not least the predatory bankers who finance the entire con trick!
All these louses know that the “funds” are useless, but they don’t care because they also know that, no matter what, there is still some equity remaining in their victim’s home. So when the “funds” predictably collapse, a result of the haemorrhaging caused by parasites sucking money out of them, they can simply demand the keys to their victim’s home!
The final outcome is 80 year old widows, formerly living in their own bought and paid for homes, finding themselves out on the street living in cardboard boxes – whilst the gangsters play golf and eat in fancy restaurants.
These people should be placed in a prison cell and the key thrown away.