Jared Brook

British conmen Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook, who masterminded the $400 million Imperial Consolidated fraud that failed in 2002, are embroiled in yet another international financial scandal involving a group that has done business under several names, including EasyKard, Saphrau, Wharfside, Quatro and G4 Group.

Nevis Court of Appeals issues bizarre ruling against Millennium Financial fraud victims and in favor of their alleged tormentor (Ian Scott, who is currently under indictment in California); in a separate action, asset planners in the US allegedly portrayed Nevis as the perfect place to hide money from creditors, according to a client who claimed to have been defrauded by those selling him the plan; The U. K. Serious Fraud Office suffers another reverse as a jury acquits former Imperial Consolidated principals Jared Brook and Lincoln Fraser on one fraud count and is undecided on another; and the SFO hopes to have better luck with recently-filed fraud charges against Terry Lindon and Giles Hutchinson, who were involved in an Imperial Consolidated spin-off known as Invaro.

The Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom confirmed to OffshoreAlert today that it will re-try former Imperial Consolidated officers Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook for conspiracy to commit fraud.

There have been two new legal developments at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida concerning the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into the Lancer Offshore group of hedge funds, which collapsed in 2003 after losing at least $500 million due to fraud by insiders; and The Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom enhanced its reputation as an ineffective law enforcement agency when it failed to secure a single conviction against three former officers of Imperial Consolidated at their High Court trial in London.

The trial in the United Kingdom of three former officers of the Imperial Consolidated Group, which collapsed in 2002 with debts of more than $300 million, has ended without any convictions.After hearing evidence for five months and deliberating for ten days, a jury of ten people today acquitted Nicholas Fraser, 34, of one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and could not reach a verdict regarding a similar charge against his brother, Lincoln Fraser, 36, and Jared Brook, 38, even after Justice Elizabeth Gloster, sitting at Blackfriars Crown Court, in London, informed them she would accept a 9-1 majority decision.

The Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom has asked for records from a United States bank that was allegedly used to launder the proceeds of investment fraud by insiders at a now defunct offshore banking and mutual fund group.

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation into Jared Brook, Lincoln Fraser and others for alleged investment fraud involving the Imperial Consolidated Group.

Five former insiders in the Imperial Consolidated Group were today each charged with conspiracy to defraud in the United Kingdom. The defendants are Jared Bentley Brook, 36, of Manchester, England; Lincoln Julian Fraser, 35, of Brookenby, Lincolnshire, England; his brother, Nicholas Grant Fraser, 33, of Kirton Lindsey, Lincolnshire, England; William Godley, 58, of Almancil, Portugal; and Robert Statham Raven, 46, of Usk, Gwent, Wales.

A company secretly controlled by British fraudsters Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook has gone into liquidation with an estimated net deficiency of £94,614 (approximately US$170,000). Matrix International (Management) Ltd., d.b.a. Matrix Investigations, went into creditors' voluntary liquidation by way of an extraordinary resolution passed by its shareholders on April 6, 2004 - nearly 19 months after being formed on September 17, 2002.

A company formed by British investment fraudsters Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook to disrupt the administration liquidation of their failed Imperial Consolidated Group, including perpetrating an asset recovery fraud against Imperial's investors, is about to go the way of most,

The United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office arrested five former insiders with the Imperial Consolidated Group during February. Lincoln Julian Fraser, 32; David Norvel Willerton, 30, who is Fraser's boyfriend; Jared Bentley Brook, 34; and one other person, believed to be a woman, were all arrested in Lincolnshire, England, on February 3, 2004. Three properties were also raided by police.

A British law firm has taken legal action against the operators of an asset recovery scheme that has targeted victims of the fraudulently-operated Imperial Consolidated Group. Pinsents filed a lawsuit against Matrix International (Management) Ltd., d.b.a. Matrix Investigations, and Barclays Bank Plc at the UK High Court on December 16, 2003.

A leading UK law firm has pulled out of a dubious asset recovery scheme after OffshoreAlert alerted them it was being organized on behalf of the crooks who were responsible for the loss of assets.Pinsents acted swiftly after being informed

The Bank of Bermuda, whose gross losses due to fraud over the last five years are in the region of $90 million, came close to being exposed to one of the biggest offshore scandals in recent times, if a suspected

Unsecured creditors of one of the main companies within the Imperial Consolidated Group have been told to expect a dividend of approximately 11 cents in the dollar. That is the "estimated outcome" for parties owed money by Imperial Consolidated Financiers Ltd. as forecast by the firm's administrators, Philip Lyon and Steve Woods, of Mazars Neville Russell.

The Bank of Bermuda sacked 14 staff in June after catching them distributing pornographic e-mails, reported The Royal Gazette newspaper; Imperial Consolidated co-founders Jared Brook and Lincoln Fraser are close to being arrested by the Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom, according to the June 12, 2003 edition of 'Private Eye', a British satirical magazine; Meanwhile, UK-registered financial services firm Kingsbridge Holdings PLC has partly blamed its "very disappointing" loss of £1.397 million (US$2.3 million) for the six months ended February 28, 2003 on Imperial Consolidated; While owners of web-sites in the United States are legally protected against libel actions from people who believe they have been defamed on Internet message boards, that does not appear to be the case in the Cayman Islands; In the United States, where there is a tax protester, there is usually an illegal offshore investment scheme not far behind and Eddie Ray Kahn, who lives in Sorrento, Florida, is no exception; The British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission issued a warning about Richmont Investments Inc. on April 10, 2003; Former Bank of Bermuda (Cayman) officer Marc Vanmarsenille, who lost his job in the aftermath of the Cash 4 Titles fiasco, is a defendant in a civil lawsuit filed at the Turks & Caicos Islands Supreme Court on November 7, 2002; At the same court, a lawsuit has been filed against TCI-registered Sealand Housing Corporation in an attempt to collect on a judgment awarded in the UK High Court; Two businessmen previously exposed in OffshoreAlert for their involvement in the sale and operation of sham offshore credit unions involving Nevis, Panama and the United States have each been sentenced to 25 years in prison, ten of which is suspended, for defrauding a 101-year-old woman out of her life savings; and If creditors of Bahamas-based Suisse Security Bank & Trust were wondering why the winding-up of the bank is taking so long, they should read the prelude to the recently-released written judgment by Bahamas Supreme Court Justice Austin Davis in which he turned down the bank's attempt to regain its banking license, which was suspended on March 5, 2001 and revoked on April 2, 2001.

The Imperial Consolidated Group swindled the United States Securities & Exchange Commission out of approximately $1 million in 1998, according to evidence contained in a judgment at the High Court in the United Kingdom. It was part of a catalog

A U.K. High Court judge today ordered bankrupt British businessman Lincoln Julian Fraser to turn over his bank records to the administrator of his failed Imperial Consolidated Group, which went bust in June, 2002 with liabilities of approximately $345 million.He

Lincoln Julian Fraser and Jared Bentley Brook, co-founders of the Imperial Consolidated Group, were both declared bankrupt at Grimsby County Court, England on May 2, 2003. It is the second bankruptcy in just over seven years for Fraser at the age of just 31-years-old.

The former Managing Director of Imperial Consolidated's offshore bank tried to remove its $500,000 security deposit with MasterCard International four months AFTER the bank went into provisional liquidation. That is an allegation contained in a petition filed at the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on February 7, 2003 by Marcus Wide, Provisional Liquidator of Imperium Bank.

Imperial Consolidated co-founder Lincoln Fraser has staved off personal bankruptcy - at least for the time being - after a commercial rent debt of £16,599 (US$26,600) was paid at the eleventh hour. A petition to have Fraser declared bankrupt was due to be heard at Grimsby County Court, England on January 20, 2003. It did not proceed after payment in full was made earlier in the month, said a spokesman for the petitioning creditor, Nadan Properties Ltd., of London.

The British Columbia Securities Commission has scheduled a hearing for December 10 11, 2002 to consider applications to vary asset freeze orders relating to accounts at the Bank of Montreal in Vancouver that were frozen in 2000 as part of

The Imperial Consolidated fraud has taken a further turn for the bizarre with the distribution in September of several press releases, masquerading as news stories, by a newly incorporated British company called Matrix International (Management) Ltd., whose commercial address is

A new investment scam that has arisen out of the ashes of the failed Imperial Consolidated Group is being run along virtually identical lines, OffshoreAlert can reveal. Potential investors in a British Virgin Islands-registered firm doing business as 'Property International' are being offered annual interest rates of 18 per cent by Imperial's former management and promoters.

A worldwide mareva injunction has been issued in the United Kingdom against Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook, who co-founded the fraudulently-operated Imperial Consolidated Group. The injunction freezes all personal and business assets belonging to Fraser and Brook.

The results of an independent geological survey of 4.5 million acres of land in Argentina to which the Imperial Consolidated Group has mining rights are expected to be known by the end of August. They will go a long way to determining the level of dividend creditors can reasonably expect, said a spokesman for Imperial's UK-based administrator, Mazars Neville Russell.

The value of mining rights in economically crippled Argentina will determine the financial condition of the Imperial Consolidated Group. More than 50 per cent of Imperial's total assets - on paper - are in holdings in mining ventures in Tucuman, said a spokesman for the group's UK-based administrator, Mazars Neville Russell Services.

Grenada's Ministry of Finance has extended the control of its agent, PricewaterhouseCoopers, over Imperium Bank until June 9 while it prepares to shut it down permanently.Regulators also want to close the mutual funds that the bank administers but have been

The Imperial Consolidated Group has offshore liabilities of approximately $170 million and has so far been unable to provide evidence to regulators that it has any substantial assets, OffshoreAlert can reveal. Imperial has not even been able to produce any books, let alone assets, according to a source who is familiar with the current investigation into the group by Grenada's Ministry of Finance.

Imperial Consolidated, whose operations include an offshore bank and offshore mutual funds, has lost a defamation lawsuit that it brought in New Zealand against a former broker. In a judgment in the High Court of New Zealand on December 18, 2001, Judge William Young ruled that defendant David Frederick Stewart was being truthful when he criticized the group on a web-site.

Michael Gilbert, who was severely criticized by a New Zealand judge in a recent court ruling (see separate story), is part of a reorganization that involves the Imperial Consolidated Group and companies with the prefix 'Alpha'.The firm that he is a director of changed its name from Imperial Consolidated (New Zealand) Ltd. to Alpha Equities Asia-Pacific (NZ) Ltd. on November 29, 2001.

Imperial Consolidated founders Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook have been given additional time to wind up their business affairs before their four year disqualification as company directors in England and Wales becomes effective. A judge sitting at Blackpool County Court

Imperial Consolidated PLC, which is funded by offshore mutual funds, has laid off a majority of its workforce at its main site in the village of Binbrook, England.All 150 200 workers at Binbrook received letters on August 31 advising them

A subsidiary of Imperial Consolidated PLC has been fined GBP12,500 (US$17,845) after pleading guilty to contempt of court in England. The fine and costs of GBP8,516.88 (US$12,157) were handed down to Mirfield Financial at the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Leeds District Registry, Mercantile Court, on July 18, 2001.

Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook, co-founders of the Imperial Consolidated Group, have each been disqualified from acting as a director of a company for four years in the United Kingdom. The disqualification was ordered at Blackpool County Court, in England, on Thursday, July 12, 2001, following an application by the Official Receiver, which is an executive agency of the Department of Trade and Industry, a government body.

Letter to OffshoreAlert from Imperial Consolidated Group principal Jared Brook pleading with us to stop exposing his fraudulently-operated Imperial Consolidated Group.

Imperial Consolidated Group founders Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook have bought a vacant hotel in Morecambe, England that was the primary cause of their financial problems a few years ago. They bought the Midland Hotel through a UK-based firm they control called Kalber Leisure Ltd. for between GBP350,000 and GBP500,000 (US$496,000-US$708,000) on June 11, 2001, according to the local press.

OffshoreAlert's investigation into the Imperial Consolidated Group reached high farce in May when the firm gave a number of Pythonesque answers to questions that we submitted to its UK-based Public Relations firm, Luther Pendragon. Perhaps the most comical response was a claim that it was prevented by UK law from disclosing the qualifications and experience of a 25-year-old man listed as General Manager of Grenada-based Imperium Bank.

Three weeks after OffshoreAlert exposed their role in a failed hotel in England, Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook resigned their positions with the UK-based Imperial Consolidated Group. The resignations of Fraser and Brook as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, respectively, of Imperial Consolidated was announced in a press release dated April 23.

Three weeks after OffshoreAlert exposed their role in a failed hotel in Morecambe, England; Lincoln Julian Fraser and Jared Bentley Brook have resigned as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, respectively, of the UK-based Imperial Consolidated Group, with immediate effect.

The Chairman of the Imperial Consolidated Group was threatened with criminal action in England in 1996/97 after being accused of breaking the terms of his bankruptcy, we can disclose. Even then, it took Lincoln Julian Fraser many more months to settle a debt of GBP22,000 (approximately US$32,111) to Lincolnshire-based creditor Heckford Advertising.

Imperial Consolidated Securities S. A. has moved its investment division to Grenada following consultations with regulators in the Bahamas, where the company is registered and physically based. The move, which was due to be completed by November 30, followed concerns about the company's involvement in the sale of unregistered securities.