Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.
Ms F.M. writes: I read your article about the dodgy art seller Marks Art and felt like saying: ‘Hallelujah, finally someone understands!’
My father, aged 88, has been dealing with them since 2018.
Dad was caught in the awful position of trying to recover his initial investment by throwing good money after bad.
Tony Hetherington replies: Your father parted with tens of thousands of pounds for artwork, following high pressure telephone calls from salesmen who convinced him that he would make a profit. But when he tried to turn the art back into cash, he was told he needed to spend more money first, to make his collection more attractive to a buyer.
The real thing: Banksy’s The Flower Thrower in the West Bank
A number of purchases were made with credit cards, and I am in touch now with two of the card issuers to press a refund claim, either under Section 75, the consumer law that makes them jointly responsible alongside the retailer, or under chargeback rules.
However, two works that your father bought for a total of over £15,000 stood out like a sore thumb. They were said to be by a woman calling herself ‘Mrs Banksy Dot’. Her work is in the same style as the Banksy street art that has been appearing on buildings for years, and the prospects for investors were underlined by reports published on the websites of BBC Wales and The Telegraph. Those reports were given to your father to convince him to buy. But they are forgeries. And very badly written forgeries at that.
The ‘BBC report’ describes the discovery of what it claims to be a Mrs Banksy Dot work: ‘It appeared on the side of a private home in an area of Southampton, England, known for its lively nightlife and drinking culture.’ The writer adds that he is using his contacts in the art world to buy one of her works ‘whilst she remains under the radar’, explaining that, ‘Her next collection is certain to become a collector’s item in only the most discerning collections.’
What a load of hogwash! Why would the BBC need to tell anyone that Southampton is in England? In fact, those words were written over a decade ago by a foreign commentator describing an actual Banksy. ‘The Telegraph’ story is just as bad, and the writing is even worse: ‘Mrs Banksy Dot burst onto the art scene with a splurge of street art and was hailed the name Mrs Banksy Dot at a very young age of twenty-five.’ The report goes on to quote from the ‘BBC story’ – one forgery quoting from another.
A BBC spokesperson told me: ‘I can confirm that this story did not originate from BBC Wales News.’ And The Telegraph made clear the report appearing under its name is similarly a fake. I asked Mark Smith to comment on his company’s use of forged news articles to convince your father to invest. He replied: ‘The articles you’ve mentioned was send to us by the artist they’re related too [sic].’ But this is like saying that if a car is advertised as doing 80 miles to the gallon instead of 30, then that is fine as long as an anonymous person somewhere in the world said it was 80, not 30.
I told Mark Smith your father had bought the art as a result of the forged stories. The sales were fraudulent, even if Smith did not know the stories were fake. He has now told me: ‘I understand the view you have and support it wholeheartedly.’ Your father has been refunded £15,520.
WE’RE WATCHING YOU
Payback: Paul Seakens
A crook who was exposed by The Mail on Sunday as the central figure in a multi-million pound fraud has been forced to repay more than £1 million to over 200 victims of his investment scam.
Paul Seakens, 62, was at the centre of a spider’s web of more than 70 scam investment firms that marketed carbon credits. Investors received certificates which were said to be in demand by industries as they allowed them to release a set amount of carbon into the atmosphere.
But the carbon credits investors were given were of a different type, used voluntarily by people wanting to pay for schemes such as tree planting to offset their own car and flight emissions.
There was no way to turn those credits back into cash.
I warned ten years ago carbon credits were being marketed with seriously false claims, including that the then Chancellor George Osborne had said that investors would show a profit within months.
And I named Seakens as the key character in the scams, even though he was authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which also gave the green light to his company Carbon Neutral Investments.
Later in 2013, a police investigation began, and in 2016 the Government’s Insolvency Service won a High Court order to close down Seakens’ company and 18 others linked to it. Six of the company directors identified by the Insolvency Service were approved by the FCA to work in the financial sector.
In 2021, Seakens was convicted of fraud. The MoS’s 2013 report was part of the prosecution evidence at his trial. Victims lost an estimated £36 million, with Seakens himself said to have sent more than £3 million offshore. Almost a year after his trial – and nine years after the 2013 alarm was sounded – the FCA banned Seakens from the finance world, ruling he ‘lacks the necessary honesty’.
Seakens is now serving 13 years in jail. Following his trial, the Crown Prosecution Service took him back to court, where he was told that if he did not pay back £1,037,948 that investigators had traced, he would serve an extra seven years.
CPS officials have now revealed that he has coughed up the cash, which has been distributed to 222 of his victims. Prosecutor Portia Ragnauth said: ‘He will continue to be monitored in case any new assets can be identified that would allow us to apply to the court to increase the value of his confiscation order.’
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email [email protected]. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
