Symtomax

In January 2020, OffshoreAlert revealed that a British/Portuguese group called Symtomax was raising funds from investors by falsely claiming in offering and promotional material that it had been issued a license to manufacture and distribute medical cannabis by Portuguese regulator INFARMED, even including a fake license number in at least one document. We also disclosed that the group's main principals, Paul Segal and Minette Coetzee, a.k.a. Minette Compson, were serial fraudsters whose prior investment scams include Advalorem Value Asset Fund, which swindled four British pension funds out of £7.7 million, and Privilege Wealth, whose investors were defrauded of more than £40 million before it collapsed after being exposed by OffshoreAlert. Compson was also a disqualified company director in Gibraltar. Despite OffshoreAlert sending INFARMED proof of Symtomax's fraud, the regulator did not consider it to be a deal-breaker and, incredibly, issued the group a real license two years later.