Russell King (fraudster)

Last updated
Russell King
Born (1959-04-11) April 11, 1959 (age 64)
Criminal charge25 counts of fraud and larceny
Capture status
Released from custody
Wanted since2008
Time at large
Ten years
Imprisoned at Jersey

Russell Stephen King (born 11 April 1959) [1] is a convicted fraudster. He is best known for his part in the doomed purchase of Notts County Football Club by Munto Finance, a subsidiary of Qadbak Investments, which was the subject of a BBC1 Panorama programme. [2] In July 2018, after several years living in Bahrain, he was extradited to Jersey, where he was charged in the Jersey Royal Court with 25 counts of fraud and larceny. In 2019 he was there sentenced to six years imprisonment. [3] He was released in 2021. [4]

Contents

Background

King first surfaced in the 1980s as chairman of Celebrity Group Holdings, a publishing company based in Kingston upon Thames, [5] which owned titles such as Basketball Monthly [6] and which was interested in taking over Eddy Shah's newspaper The Post [7] and Hamley's toy shop. [8] It also owned Zodiac Toys, which became insolvent in 1990. [9] Along with his business partner Alan Kingston, King was also a director of Kingston Basketball Club. [10] However, in 1991 King was sentenced to two years in prison for insurance fraud after trying to claim £600,000 for his Aston Martin Zagato after claiming it had been stolen. It was discovered hidden in a garage. [11] Whilst he was in prison, Celebrity Group went into liquidation [12] and was sued for £684,000 by Creditcorp, which alleged fraudulent behaviour by Celebrity Group's directors. [13]

In the 1990s, King was associated with the publicist Max Clifford, and appeared in a controversial episode of Kilroy where Clifford had a fracas with the member of parliament Roger Gale. [14] In 2004, he was involved with a sports agency called Essentially Sport, which represented Jenson Button. [15]

Belgravia Financial Services Group

In the mid 2000s, King was involved with a Jersey-based company called Belgravia Financial Services Group. After the death of a business partner in 2008, King manipulated an employee of the business into transferring £671,000 from the business into his own personal account. [3] He also sold the late partner's collection of cherished number plates and kept the proceeds. [16] When Jersey-based company Close Finance sought repayment of £2m it had loaned to Belgravia, King fled to Bahrain. [17]

Swiss Commodity Holding, First London Bank, and Qadbak Investments

In 2009, King pursued a series of new financial cons, building on founded a company called Swiss Commodity Holding (SCH), which claimed assets of $2 trillion besides the rights to all the gold, iron ore and coal in North Korea. [18] He then approached British investment bank First London plc, and by falsely claiming he was managing billions of dollars for the Bahraini royal family, he got the bank to turn over 49 per cent of its shares to him. [19] [20] [21] The following year, First London went into administration with debts of £8.7m. [2]

Notts County F.C. acquisition and resale

In July 2009, King acted as head negotiator and consultant for the purchase of Notts County Football Club by Munto Finance, a subsidiary of Qadbak Investments, another company trading on nonexistent connections with wealthy Bahraini families. [2]

King negotiated the sale of the football club to Munto for £1. He personally recruited former England football manager Sven-Göran Eriksson as director of football at Notts County, promising him a large sum if he also worked for SCH. While these negotiations were underway, King, representing SCH, visited North Korean Chairman Kim Yong-nam of the Supreme People's Assembly in Pyongyang. Eriksson and Peter Willett joined King on the trip. The purpose of the visit was nominally to persuade the government to hand over gold mining rights in exchange for billions of US dollars allegedly from Bahraini investors. [22]

King used the nickname of L. Voldemort, after the Harry Potter character Lord Voldemort, and later claimed that he could not have been involved because his name, Russell King, did not appear in any documents. [23] Notts County did not receive the promised funds and was unable to pay its bills. It was resold for a small sum that December five months after the purchase, with debts of £7 million. [2]

BMW Sauber attempted acquisition

In September 2009, Formula One team BMW Sauber, seeking new investment, announced it was considering a sale to Qadbak Investments. The deal collapsed in November after it was revealed that King was behind the company, and the team was sold back to Sauber instead. [24] [25]

Bahraini magazines

From around 2013, King operated the Middle East edition of a magazine called Food and Travel using different aliases and claiming false statistics on the publication's circulation numbers. [26] He also launched a magazine called FT Business Arabia, falsely claiming it to be the Middle East version of the Financial Times in order to obtain millions of dollars in advertising revenue. He also benefited from barter deals with top hospitality groups and luxury retail brands in the UAE. [26]

2018 fraud and larceny charges

In 2018, King was extradited from Bahrain to Jersey, and on 27 July 2018, King was charged in the Jersey Royal Court with 25 counts of fraud and larceny that occurred while he was living in Jersey in 2008. These include allegedly selling the Belgravia Financial Services Group in a fraudulent manner, as well as falsification of accounts. Crown Advocate Matthew Jowitt stated "It is alleged the misappropriation is something in the order of £16 million." On 7 August 2018, it was reported that due to the complexity of the case and the speed at which events had happened, the bailiff, Sir William Bailhache, adjourned the case for three weeks, at which point pleas would be entered. [27] [28] In April 2019, King was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for stealing £670,000 from the Belgravia Group in 2008, [29] [3] and in August 2019 he was told to pay back £320,000 or face additional time in jail. [30] He was released in 2021. [31]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advance-fee scam</span> Type of confidence trick fraud

An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and is one of the most common types of confidence tricks. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim to pay or simply disappears.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Notts County F.C.</span> Association football club in Nottingham, England

Notts County Football Club is a professional association football club based in Nottingham, England. The team compete in EFL League Two, the fourth level of the English football league system. Founded on 28 November 1862, it is the oldest professional association football club in the world and predates the Football Association itself. The club became one of the 12 founder members of the Football League in 1888. They are nicknamed the "Magpies" due to the black and white colour of their home strip, which inspired Italian club Juventus to adopt the colours for their kit in 1903. After playing at different home grounds during its first fifty years, including Trent Bridge, the club moved to Meadow Lane in 1910 and remains there. Notts County has a local rivalry with city neighbour Nottingham Forest, as well as with other nearby clubs such as Mansfield Town.

Bank fraud is the use of potentially illegal means to obtain money, assets, or other property owned or held by a financial institution, or to obtain money from depositors by fraudulently posing as a bank or other financial institution. In many instances, bank fraud is a criminal offence. While the specific elements of particular banking fraud laws vary depending on jurisdictions, the term bank fraud applies to actions that employ a scheme or artifice, as opposed to bank robbery or theft. For this reason, bank fraud is sometimes considered a white-collar crime.

In business, the term boiler room refers to an outbound call center selling questionable investments by telephone. It usually refers to a room where salespeople work using unfair, dishonest sales tactics, sometimes selling penny stocks or private placements or committing outright stock fraud. A common boiler room tactic is the use of falsified and bolstered information in combination with verified company-released information. The term is pejorative: it is often used to imply high-pressure sales tactics and, sometimes, poor working conditions.

Robert Hendy-Freegard is a British convicted conman and impostor who masqueraded as an MI5 agent while working as a barman and car salesman. He is also known as David Hendy and David Clifton.

Peter Clarence Foster is an Australian career criminal who has been imprisoned in Australia, Britain, the United States, and Vanuatu for a variety of offences related to weight loss and other scams as well as absconding from justice. His convictions range from fraud and money laundering to contempt of court and resisting arrest.

Voice phishing, or vishing, is the use of telephony to conduct phishing attacks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Davenport (fraudster)</span> English socialite, property developer and fraudster (born 1966)

Edward Ormus Sharrington Davenport is a convicted English fraudster, socialite, and property developer.

Notts County were the oldest club in the Football League and the 2009–10 season was their 121st year in The Football League. An unknown Investment company took over Notts County in early June with Sven-Göran Eriksson becoming Director of Football and he left on 12 February. On 12 February, Ray Trew became owner of the club following the Peter Trembling's sale.

Qadbak Investments Ltd was a British Virgin Islands registered company which served as the vehicle for the short-lived purchase of English football club Notts County for £1, and for a failed attempt to purchase Formula One team BMW Sauber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Palmer (criminal)</span> English gangster

John Edward Palmer was an English criminal, former market trader and gold dealer, involved in various criminal activities including mortgage and timeshare fraud.

Peter Edward Wililam Trembling is a former chairman of Notts County football club.

Kevin Foster is an English investment fraudster, convicted of 14 counts of deception and theft in relation to his operation of a £34m Ponzi scheme, which ran from 2002 to 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forum Group</span>

Forum Group was an Australian managed services provider offering integrated B2B solutions, including IT, print, environment, fleet and security. Founded in 2011 in St Leonards, New South Wales, the business soon became the most elaborate front for a $400m fraud that competes with that of Christopher Skase. Bill Papas who goes by several names has 10 cars worth in excess of $5 million, 20 plus properties valued at $40 million has successfully funneled Westpac banks money with the help of his confidants all over the world particularly to Greece where he is hiding with his girlfriend Louise Agostino. Forum had been on the BRW Fast Starters for consecutive years and its British subsidiary powerPerfector in the similar business lists. Forum had offices in all mainland Australian capital cities, and was the provider of TomTom in Oceania, being a $60 million per year revenue business. Thanks to Papas the business has now been liquidated, over 50% of the staff have been terminated and have not received their entitlements while he is seen drinking cocktails in his luxury abode on the Mediterranean.

Mark Richard George Acklom is an English conman and fraudster who was on Britain's National Crime Agency's list of 10 most-wanted fugitives. His criminal career began at the age of 16 and he has been imprisoned five times in Spain since 1999. He was wanted by Avon & Somerset Police on suspicion of fraud by false representation.

Gerald Martin Smith is a British businessman and convicted fraudster.

Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, commonly known as Hushpuppi, Hush, or Ray Hushpuppi is a Nigerian former Instagram influencer and convicted felon. He was sentenced in the United States to 11 years for conspiracy to launder money obtained from business email compromise frauds and other scams, including schemes that defrauded a US law firm out of approximately $40 million, illegally transferred $14.7 million from a foreign financial institution, and targeted to steal $124 million from an English Premier League club.

Inez Magnusson (1897—1953), also known as Inez Johansson, née Nicolina Theresia Johannesdotter, was a Swedish fraudster.

References

  1. ↑ "BLACKBROOK NOMINEE 46 LIMITED people - Find and update company information - GOV.UK". find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 2022-03-16. In document of 29 Nov 2002 "New secretary appointed".
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Fraud office looks at scamming of Sven-Goran Eriksson". BBC News. 2011-04-18.
  3. 1 2 3 Maguire, Jack. "Fraudster who fled to Bahrain after stealing £670K from Jersey company is finally jailed". www.jerseyeveningpost.com. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  4. ↑ "The football scam that took Eriksson to North Korea". BBC Sport. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  5. ↑ Bradley, Sue (16 June 1989). "Kings back to rule!". Kingston Informer. p. 52.
  6. ↑ "'Post' bid". Irish Independent. 20 Dec 1988. p. 4.
  7. ↑ "New bid to save the Post". Newcastle Journal. 19 December 1988. p. 7.
  8. ↑ Bridges, Richard (23 January 1989). "Celebrity pushed into the limelight". The Daily Telegraph. p. 21.
  9. ↑ "CELEBRITY GROUP HOLDINGS LIMITED trading as ZODIAC TOYS Registered Number 1958032" (PDF). London Gazette. 7 Feb 1990. p. 1708.
  10. ↑ Bradley, Sue (3 March 1989). "LONG LIVE KINGS! Borough's basketball giants set to return". Kingston Informer. p. 1.
  11. ↑ "Tycoon 'stole' own super car". Staines & Ashford News. 23 May 1991. p. 6.
  12. ↑ Wittstock, Melinda (3 Feb 1990). "Receiver appointed at Zodiac". The Times. p. 17.
  13. ↑ Magrath, Paul (1992-09-04). "Law Report: Fraud claim based on inference: Creditcorp Ltd v Kingston and others". The Independent. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  14. ↑ Johnson, Boris (14 Jan 1997). "'Mad Max' Clifford protests too much". The Daily Telegraph. p. 5.
  15. ↑ "Byfield Steps Down from Button's Management Company". Autosport . 31 December 2004. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  16. ↑ "Close Finance v King 15-Sep-2008". www.jerseylaw.je. Retrieved 2020-04-24.
  17. ↑ Goodley, Simon (2010-09-10). "Russell King prevented from leaving Bahrain". The Guardian. London.
  18. ↑ "Russell King sentenced to prison; duped UAE businesses, fraudulent FT Arabia publication". gulfnews.com. Retrieved 2020-04-24.
  19. ↑ Gus Lubin (2011-04-21). "Meet The Conman Who Bought A Football Club And All The Gold In North Korea, While Name-Dropping The King Of Bahrain - Business Insider". Articles.businessinsider.com. Retrieved 2013-07-12.
  20. ↑ "Bahrain to probe deals of convicted UK fraudster - Banking & Finance". ArabianBusiness.com. Retrieved 2013-07-12.
  21. ↑ Roberts, Laura (2011-04-18). "Conman took control of half an investment bank without paying". London: Telegraph. Retrieved 2013-07-12.
  22. ↑ Scott, Matt. "Curious case of Notts County, former adviser and a North Korean bigwig". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 26 March 2022.
  23. ↑ Matt Scott (15 April 2011), "How Digger helped solve the riddle of Notts County and Lord Voldemort", The Guardian, London
  24. ↑ "Luxury Photos and Articles - StyleList". StyleList. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  25. ↑ Henry, Alan (2009-11-27). "BMW agrees to sell team back to founder Peter Sauber". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-06-06.
  26. 1 2 Farooqui, Mazhar (2018-02-14). "Trillion dollar conman strikes Dubai". GulfNews. Retrieved 2018-05-17.
  27. ↑ "Bahrain News: Conman extradited to UK to stand trial on 25 fraud and larceny counts". www.gdnonline.com. Retrieved 2018-08-07.
  28. ↑ Morris, Michael. "Extradited defendant faces £16m fraud case". jerseyeveningpost.com. Retrieved 2018-07-29.
  29. ↑ Angeloni, Cristian (2019-04-24). "Jersey fraudster jailed for six years". International Adviser. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  30. ↑ "Court orders fraudster King to pay £320,000". www.jerseyeveningpost.com. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  31. ↑ "The football scam that took Eriksson to North Korea". BBC Sport. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.