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Illegal expat mortgages from Marbella boiler room judged null and void
| Published: | 19 Dec at 6 PM |
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Another appalling example of financial fraudsters targeting inexperienced expat investors has finally been decided in the victims’ favour by a Bilbao court,
Spain’s version of the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ was finally crushed last week by a Bilbao judge, who ruled all contracts made between SL Mortgage Funding Ltd and their clients are null and void, thus giving those who lost six million euros in total though an equity release scheme the ability to claim back every penny. The rationale for the judgement was that the company and its FAs operating in Marbella, Estepona and Fuengirola were unregulated, had no permits to sell the products and were in breach of financial and banking regulations.
Although the verdict is good news for the losers and bad news for financial fraudsters in Spain, it’s taken 10 full years for the victims to get reparation and, hopefully, their money back. The civil court case was accepted in 2014, after the Isle of Man’s regulator ignored emails and letters from defrauded investors about the IOM company Premier’s link with the Marbella fraudsters. According to reports from 2014, various other Isle of Man banks were involved, as were lawyers in Bilbao who sanctioned the products.
BNB Paribas IOM and Royal Bank of Scotland IOM were offshore custodians of the cash raised at different times, and were also unregulated in Spain to provide the service. Calls for the two offshore banks to be held responsible for their involvement in the engineering of the illicit financial product have been heard, but no replies have been received to date.
Sadly, this is just another example of financial fraud across the entire expat world, with illegal IFAs in the guise of friendship seeking out financial novices to fleece. Behind the vast majority of the scammers are the offshore insurance companies, supporting the IFAs’ efforts and asking no embarrassing questions. Legal attacks on these companies in order to have them admit their responsibility have been unsuccessful so far, leaving the expat community worldwide still at risk.
Spain’s version of the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ was finally crushed last week by a Bilbao judge, who ruled all contracts made between SL Mortgage Funding Ltd and their clients are null and void, thus giving those who lost six million euros in total though an equity release scheme the ability to claim back every penny. The rationale for the judgement was that the company and its FAs operating in Marbella, Estepona and Fuengirola were unregulated, had no permits to sell the products and were in breach of financial and banking regulations.
Although the verdict is good news for the losers and bad news for financial fraudsters in Spain, it’s taken 10 full years for the victims to get reparation and, hopefully, their money back. The civil court case was accepted in 2014, after the Isle of Man’s regulator ignored emails and letters from defrauded investors about the IOM company Premier’s link with the Marbella fraudsters. According to reports from 2014, various other Isle of Man banks were involved, as were lawyers in Bilbao who sanctioned the products.
BNB Paribas IOM and Royal Bank of Scotland IOM were offshore custodians of the cash raised at different times, and were also unregulated in Spain to provide the service. Calls for the two offshore banks to be held responsible for their involvement in the engineering of the illicit financial product have been heard, but no replies have been received to date.
Sadly, this is just another example of financial fraud across the entire expat world, with illegal IFAs in the guise of friendship seeking out financial novices to fleece. Behind the vast majority of the scammers are the offshore insurance companies, supporting the IFAs’ efforts and asking no embarrassing questions. Legal attacks on these companies in order to have them admit their responsibility have been unsuccessful so far, leaving the expat community worldwide still at risk.
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