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A number of articles right here have delved into the historical past of John Bernard, the pseudonym utilized by a pretend billionaire expertise investor who tricked dozens of startups into giving him tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. Bernard’s newest sufferer — a Norwegian firm hoping to construct a fleet of environmentally pleasant transport vessels — is now embroiled in a lawsuit over a deal gone dangerous, wherein Bernard falsely claimed to have secured $100 million from six different rich traders, together with the founding father of Uber and the artist Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, higher often called The Weeknd.
John Bernard is a pseudonym utilized by John Clifton Davies, a convicted fraudster from the UK who’s at present a fugitive from justice and residing in Ukraine. Davies’ Bernard persona has fleeced dozens of expertise corporations out of an estimated $30 million with the promise of profitable investments.
For a number of years till reinventing himself once more fairly lately, Bernard pretended to be a billionaire Swiss investor who made his fortunes within the dot-com growth 20 years in the past and who was searching for funding alternatives. Bernard generated a stream of victims by providing terribly beneficiant finder’s charges for funding brokers who helped him safe new purchasers. However these brokers would ultimately get stiffed as effectively as a result of Bernard’s firm would by no means consummate a deal.
In case after case, Bernard would promise to speculate hundreds of thousands in tech startups, after which insist that corporations pay tens of 1000’s of {dollars} price of due diligence charges up entrance. Nevertheless, the due diligence firm he insisted on utilizing — one other Swiss agency known as Inside Information — additionally was secretly owned by Bernard, who would invariably pull out of the deal after receiving the due diligence cash.
The rip-off artist John Bernard (left) in a current Zoom name, and a photograph of John Clifton Davies from 2015.
However Bernard would undertake a barely completely different strategy to stealing from Freidig Transport Ltd., a Norwegian firm shaped in 2017 that was searching for the equal of USD $100 million funding to convey its inexperienced fleet of 30 new offshore service vessels to fruition.
Journalists Harald Vanvik and Harald Berglihn from the Norwegian Enterprise Every day write that by means of funding advisors in London, Bernard was launched to Nils-Odd Tønnevold, co-founder of Freidig Transport and an funding advisor with 20 years of expertise.
“Each Bernard and Inside Information seemed to be professionals,” the reporters wrote in a narrative that’s behind a paywall. “Bernard seemed to be skilled. He knew rather a lot about start-ups and received into issues shortly. Credible and dependable was the impression of him, mentioned Tønnevold.”
“Bernard ultimately took on the function of principal investor, claiming he had six different rich traders on the group, together with artist Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, often called The Weeknd, Uber founder Garrett Camp and Norilsk Nickel proprietor Russian Vladimir Potanin,” the Norwegian journalists wrote. “These dedicated to contribute $99.25 million to Freidig.”
So on this case Bernard conveniently claimed he’d provide you with virtually all the funding, which got here $750,000 wanting the objective. One other investor, a Belgian named Man Devos, contributed the remaining $750,000.
However by the spring of 2020, it was clear that Devos and others concerned within the transport venture had been tricked, and that every one the cash which had been paid to Bernard — an estimated NOK 15 million (~USD $1.67 million) — had been misplaced. By that point the 2 co-founders and their households had borrowed USD $1.5 million, and had transferred the funds to Inside Information.
“Additional investigations indicated that Bernard was in truth a convicted and wished Briton based mostly within the Ukrainian capital Kiev,” the Norwegian Enterprise Every day reported. “Man Devos has sued Nils-Odd Tønnevold with a declare of 750,000 {dollars} as a result of he believes Tønnevold has a accountability for the cash being transferred to Bernard. Tønnevold rejects this.”
Bernard’s rip-off is genius as a result of he by no means approaches traders immediately; reasonably, traders are incentivized to place his portfolio in entrance of tech corporations searching for monetary backing. And since the very best cons start as an thought or chance planted within the goal’s thoughts.
What’s exceptional about Freidig Transport’s fleecing is that we heard about it in any respect. Within the first of this now five-part collection, we heard from Jason Kane, an legal professional who focuses on funding fraud. Kane mentioned corporations bilked by small-time funding schemes hardly ever pursue authorized motion, primarily as a result of the authorized charges concerned can shortly surpass the losses. What’s extra, most victims will possible be too ashamed to return ahead.
“These are instances the place you may win however you’ll by no means acquire any cash,” Kane mentioned. “This looks as if an funding twist on these pretty easy scams all of us can’t imagine folks fall for, however as scams go this one is fairly good. Do that a couple of occasions a 12 months and you may make an honest residing and nobody is actually going to return after you.”
It does seem that Bernard took benefit of a shocking lack of due diligence by the Freidig co-founders. In this Could 2020 submit on Twitter — effectively after their funds had already been transferred to Bernard — Nils-Odd Tønnevold will be seen asking Uber co-founder Garrett Camp if he certainly had agreed to put money into his firm:
John Clifton Davies, a.ok.a. John Bernard, Jonathan Bibi, John Cavendish, is a U.Ok. man who absconded from justice earlier than being convicted on a number of counts of fraud in 2015. Previous to his conviction, Davies served 16 months in jail on suspicion of murdering his third spouse on their honeymoon in India. The U.Ok. authorities later dropped the homicide expenses for lack of proof. Davies at present resides along with his fourth spouse in or close to Kyiv, Ukraine.
If you happen to favored this story, take a look at my earlier reporting on John Bernard/Davies:
Due Diligence That Cash Can’t Purchase
Who’s Tech Investor John Bernard?
Promising Infusions of Money, Faux Investor John Bernard Walked Away With $30 Million
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