Heartless, parasite Jonothan Piper to be jailed for wine investment fraud

Embassy Wine UK Ltd website:

'We have great passion for the product let us share 

the knowledge of wealth and guidance to building 

a portfolio of the most sort after wines. Enabling an attractive 

and healthy return on your investment.' 

 

On Tuesday 23^rd August 2016 30-year-old Jonothan Piper admitted at Snaresbrook Crown Court to defrauding his investor clients and HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs).

Piper, who posed as a wine broker, preyed on the elderly and vulnerable – cold calling and persuading them transfer their wine to his company Embassy Wine UK Ltd. Piper charged an advance fee for sales for ‘legal costs’. Once the wine was transferred Piper would become impossible to contact and the duped investor would never receive their promised money.

The fraud netted Piper at least £300,000 with one investor losing £150,000. Another investor, an elderly woman who had already been a victim of World Wide Wines Ltd, was persuaded to buy a further £33,000 worth of wine from Embassy. This included a case of 2004 Haut Brion for £10,000 in 2012, which could have been bought elsewhere for £2400. The salesman claimed it should have cost £12,000! 

Embassy offered to sell her portfolio for £60,000 – charging £20,000 in ‘legal fees’ reimbursable in seven days.   

HMRC was defrauded for £51,104 as Piper failed to declare any income between 2008 and 2014.

Embassy Wines UK Ltd was founded on 28^th June 2011. It was wound up in the public interest on 3^rd December 2014. Piper was the sole director and shareholder with just £1 of share capital. 
Piper has been jailed on Judges Remand and will be sentenced on 16^th September 2016. I hope that Judge Louise Kamill will out Piper away for a good stretch and that Piper will be forced to repay his victims, whose life savings he looted and spent on high living including nearly £90,000 on a BMW X6 and a Range Rover Sport. Piper's expertise lay not as he claimed in fine wine but in trousering his elderly and vulnerable clients' money.  

On 17^th November 2015 Piper was banned for being a UK director for 11 years.  

Over the past three years recovery room wine investment/advance fee frauds have become increasingly common. Victims of previous wine investment scam companies are contacted by new firms and offered deals on their wine portfolios at well above market price.
Some companies also make bogus claims to have taken over liquidations from legitimate companies like Grant Thornton and ‘found’ investors missing wines abroad. Invariably investors are again left empty handed.  

It is good to see that some of these heartless fraudsters – vile individuals who exploit vulnerable people – are being prosecuted.    

Jonothan Piper (Embassy Wine UK Ltd) banned 11 years as UK company director

Leaving a bad taste: 11 year disqualification for director whose company ‘sold’ wine it failed to provide, and bought wine it failed to pay for
Jonothan Piper, a director of Embassy Wine UK Ltd (Embassy), a company that traded in fine wine investments, has been disqualified as a director for 11 years for causing or failing to prevent the company from selling wine to customers which it failed to provide, purchasing wine from customers which it failed to pay them for, and charging fees to customers for which no service was provided.

Mr Piper’s disqualification from 17 November 2015 means that he cannot promote, manage, or be a director of a limited company until 2026.
Embassy was wound up Public Interest grounds after an investigation by the Insolvency Service. There then followed further investigations by a specialist team of the Insolvency Service.

The investigation showed the company was involved in a scheme to deprive investors of their savings by persuading them to invest in wine or sell their fine wine through the company. As a result, customers are owed at least £382,167.
Commenting on this case Paul Titherington, Official Receiver in the Public Interest Unit, said:

The Insolvency Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement powers to investigate and disqualify directors whose companies defraud the public.

The amount owed to customers may in fact be higher than that revealed by our investigations as the company failed to keep adequate records and there may therefore be additional customers I am presently unaware of”.

The investigation uncovered that between 28 June 2011 and 3 December 2014, Embassy traded buying and selling fine wine from individuals in the UK. As at the date of the winding up order, the company had no known assets.
Jonothan Piper was the sole de jure director of the company throughout the period of these trades.

Notes to Editors
Embassy Wine UK Ltd (CRO No. 07686061) was incorporated on 28 June 2011. Its last registered office was at 17 Ensign House, London, E14 9XQ.

Jonothan Piper is of London and his date of birth is 4 April 1986.
The petition to wind up the company was presented by the Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills on Public Interest grounds. The winding up order was made against Embassy on 3 December 2014.
On 27 October 2015 the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills accepted an undertaking from Mr Piper that he would be disqualified for a period of 11 years.
A disqualification order has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:

• act as a director of a company
• take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership
• be a receiver of a company’s property

In addition that person cannot act as an insolvency practitioner and there are many other restrictions are placed on disqualified directors by other regulations.
Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings. Further information on director disqualifications and restrictions is available.