Mayfair Worldwide Trading etc: fraudsters jailed for duping wine investors out of nearly £1m

 Home page of Mayfair Worldwide Trading Ltd

 Mayfair Worldwide Trading Limited
– 'Trusted Worldwide' !!!!

Christopher Brummitt

currently on the run 

Press release: 5th April 2019

'A group of fraudsters were jailed for a combined 17 years and 9 months today for their part in an elaborate wine investment scam which conned nearly £1m out of investors, many of whom were elderly and vulnerable.

Adam Edwards, Barry Warner, Christopher Brummit, Tarik Drissi and James Brooks were today sentenced at Southwark Crown Court for their actions between 2013 and 2015.

The five men operated three fake companies - Mayfair Worldwide Trading Ltd, Commodex Global Limited and Winchester Associates Ltd. These companies claimed to be established fine-wine brokers based in prime locations such as Berkeley Square, Mayfair but were in fact based in industrial estate units on the outskirts of Great Dunmow in Essex.

The gang cold-called fine-wine investors from a ‘sucker list’, and through a series of aggressive sales tactics, managed to defraud a number of wine holdings from vulnerable victims. Once these had been obtained, they would be sold on to legitimate buyers, with the proceeds pocketed by the fraudsters.
Victims were then told a series of elaborate lies about the whereabouts of their money. Some were told that their wine had been reinvested into graphene, diamonds or gold.

Sian Mitchell from the CPS Specialist Fraud Division said:

“This was an unscrupulous gang who would go to great lengths to defraud elderly and vulnerable people out of their very valuable wines, many of which represented their savings for their retirement. One of the victims was a disabled man who, as a result of not receiving payment, was unable to buy a new wheelchair.

“They went to great lengths to legitimise their fraudulent activities - Mayfair Worldwide Trading issued a bogus press release claiming that the company had won the ‘2014 ID Times Trading Award for Best Asset Exchange Programme and the Internship Europe Excellence Award.’ Obviously, no such awards existed, and were designed to dupe innocent investors.

“We are delighted to have secured custodial sentences for this group, and will continue to prosecute those who think they can benefit from fraud.”

How the wine fraud operated

1.    Victim A is cold called by ‘David Barrington’ from Mayfair World Trading. Having in reality spoken to the defendant Adam Edwards, Victim A agrees to sell his wines to Mayfair Worldwide Trading (MWT) for £38,228 in a ‘graphene asset swap’, on the understanding graphene will be sold and the sum paid to him in 28 days
2.    The victim instructed LCB Bonded Warehouse to transfer wines to the account of MWT at EHD Bonded Warehouse
3.    A legitimate buyer, Vintners Fine Wine Merchants Ltd, agree to buy the wine for £27,470 and instructs EHD to transfer wines to them
4.    Vintners Ltd transfers payment of £30,970 for these wines (and £3,500 worth of other wine) to the bank account of MWT - none is paid to the victim.
5.    Having spoken to another employee with an assumed name ‘Peter Phillips’ and told there is a problem with the graphene market, Victim A is now told his wines will now be converted to diamonds and sold
6.    Having received no money and struggling to contact MWT, Victim A contacts the police to report the fraud

Sentences

• Adam James Edwards - 6 years plus 5 years Director’s Disqualification Order
• Barrymore Alexis Warner - 5 ½ years
• Tarik Drissi - 3 years
• James Robert Brooks  - 20 months imprisonment suspended for 2 years, 300 hours unpaid work
• Christopher Brummitt – Sentenced in absence – 3 years 3 months, 5 years Director’s Disqualification Order

Other details:

Sian Mitchell is a Specialist Prosecutor from the Specialist Fraud Division of the Crown Prosecution Service'

The successful investigation was a collaboration between Essex Police and the Met. 

Comment:
Good to see these fraudsters sent to jail. Hopefully Christopher Brummitt, who has fled, will soon be caught. However, would have liked to have seen longer disqualifications from serving as a director unless the disqualification period runs from time of release from prison. 

Mayfair's pack of lies

Winchester Associates Ltd – a recently active charitable institution?

 'Winchester Associates was founded in 2006 and 

has an extensive amount of commodity trading between it's (sic) brokers'

Companies House: nature of business: market research 
and public opinion polling
Last accounts made up to 31.12.2013 (Dormant) 

'Who is?' details of Winchester Associates website: registered 13th March 2015 

Winchester Associates Ltd's contact details are:
St Clement's House, 27/28 Clement's Lane, EC4N 7AE 
Serviced offices and meeting rooms   

Winchester Associates Ltd have recently been active contacting a number of wine investors and offering very attractive prices for clients in Dubai and China. Its website trumpets that the company was founded in 2006 and has 'extensive experience'. This impression is highly suspect.

Although Winchester Associates was indeed set up on 21.8.2006, the company with a £2 share capital was dormant at least until end of 2013 – the last accounts filed are for a dormant company. Probably remained dormant until around late February/March 2015. Current director is 33-year-old Christopher James Brummitt (appointed 24.2.2015 and their website  wasn't registered until 13.3.2015. Serviced office address. Despite this history website gives impression that Winchester Associates Ltd has been active in the fine wine trade and commodity trading since 2006.   

AC was recently contacted by Winchester Associates Ltd who made a very generous offer for their portfolio of wines. This offer included £1434 for a case of 2005 Lynch Bages, which can be purchased elsewhere in the UK for £928, £10,894 for 1996 Lafite (case) and most generously £689 for a case of 2012 Château d'Yquem. Doubtless Winchester Associates priced the Yquem on its rarity value as the château did not release any wine under its name in 2012 as the conditions during the vintage were so atrocious for making sweet wine. Distributing such largesse makes me wonder whether Winchester Associates Ltd is a registered charity.

AC was told that Winchester Associates Ltd don't normally trade wines and instead deal in other commodities for corporate customers (oil and gas, diamonds, stones, gold etc). They claim to have a specific customer referred to as an "International Hotel Chain" with office is Dubai and Shanghai who they help source wines for from UK stockists. They stated that they had POs from them and could offer Live-X +25%.   

Winchester Associates Ltd's web pages on energy, metals and gold bear considerable similarity with the pages on

-->www.macquarie.com and --> http://commodityhq.com/commodity/precious-metals/gold while the fine wine section has similarities with an established wine merchant.

Here as an example is Energy:

'Winchester Associates  provides products and solutions to a broad customer base across the energy sector. Traded energy products include natural gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), natural gas liquids (NGLs), power, crude oil, coal and other refined products.

In addition, the division is active across all physical energy products: natural gas, power, LNG, oil, NGLs and coal. Energy Markets also provides storage and transportation services, and commodities based financing.'

 

I have to admire Christopher Brummitt's energy as the sole director of a £2 company on having established 'a broad customer base across the energy sector' in just five months since his appointment in February 2015. 

However, despite this I will steer clear of Winchester Associates Ltd and their amazingly generous wine offers – wine deals in Dubai and Shanghai can go sour....   

••

An aside 

I am indebted to anon for this research. On 2nd June 2005 The Hertfordshire and Essex Observer reported that a Chris Brummitt – 22 years old and living at the Spinney was jailed for three months for assaulting two police officers, while drunk. Read the story here. This may well be another Chris Brummitt and an entire coincidence. However, Christopher Brummitt (director of Winchester Associates Ltd) does come from Hertfordshire and as he was born on 13th June 1982, he would have been 22 when he was sentenced.  

Update: 27th August 2015  
investdrinks understands that Winchester Associates Ltd applied to EHD and London City Bond to open a trading account at these bonded warehouses. Both companies declined to do business with Winchester Associates Ltd.   

 

 

 

 

Christopher Brummitt holds 1 appointments at 1 active companies, has resigned from 0 companies and held 0 appointments at 0 dissolved companies. Christopher began their first appointment at the age of 32. Their longest current appointment spans 0 years and 5 months at WINCHESTER ASSOCIATES LIMITED.

Read more at: http://companycheck.co.uk/director/919529152