Essex and London Properties Criminal Case

Essex and London Properties Criminal Case

We have covered progress on the E&LP case for a few years and have an investor group involved in a civil claim with a UK lawyer. This week, the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service brought their case against six people involved in the scam to the Court in London. There were originally seven people, but one had already pleaded guilty.

The defendants are facing criminal charges linked to their involvement. They are Mitchell Mallin (a building site labourer who the founders of the scheme would like people to believe was the mastermind, but who in reality still has L and R written on the top of his shoes to help him), Anthony Whymark (a sales agent who has sold a lot of scams over the years), Abdul Mukith (a man with a history of involvement in scams), Mohammed Hussain (who we don’t know a lot about), Florian Pierini (a serial scammer who moved from this scam into a digital currency scam called European Property Coin) and Jeffrey Razaq (a former disqualified director and an enabler who sets up the scams and sales teams. He was disqualified for his involvement in the MH Carbon carbon credit scam). The court was told that almost £14m was raised from investors for the Essex and London Properties scam. The prosecution case is that it was an illegal Ponzi scheme and the investors have lost all their money.

The prosecution alleged that the company either falsely claimed to own properties or forged documents to show that it owned properties to make it look like the money was being invested. Mallin, Whymark and Mukith were charged with investment fraud. They were also charged with money-laundering along with Hussain and Pierini.  Razaq was charged with receiving money which he knew was the proceeds of crime.

The court heard that more than £2m was transferred to accounts linked to the defendants and almost £5m was transferred to offshore accounts in the United Arab Emirates. That’s a lot of money going offshore for a company that was supposed to be buying properties in the UK. We’re hoping there will be some information in the future on whether the Police were able to recover any of that offshore money.

Investor funds were routed through escrow companies such as Jade State Wealth Ltd, owned by accountant Graham Arnott. Mr Arnott has a lot of companies. They are linked to at least a dozen investment scams and, based on recent information received, Mr Arnott’s companies continue to offer financial services to new scams. Neither Jade State Wealth Ltd nor Graham Arnott were charged with any offence.

All defendants are disputing the charges and have pleaded not guilty. The hearing continues into next week.

To view our previous article on the Essex and London Properties criminal case please click on THIS LINK.  We will publish another article when the case concludes.

Essex and London Properties Criminal Case.

See THIS LINK for our update on this case dated 5th April 2022.