The Ramis Fund the BVI multi-billion-pound secretive private investment fund says assets pledged as security by Libya in the 2011 sale/purchase of Sun-e Holdings Ltd (BVI) to the State of Libya will now be seized to recover funds owed due to defaulted promissory note.
Financial Fraudster News Investigations can report based on whistleblower documents and court filings seen that in early 2009, Colonel Gadaffi the then Libyan leader who entrusted the then Minister for Oil Shukri Mohammed Ghanem to make a series of deals via special purpose vehicle companies and subsequently through client accounts managed through several offshore banks to finance ambitious plans not just for his country but also for the enrichment of close members directly and indirectly linked to the leadership.
Ghanem was later found dead in Austria in 2012 after fleeing the grips of the Gaddafi regime in very suspicious circumstances after a reported £1 billion was borrowed from a private entity firm with a promise to repay the amount borrowed later found to be siphoned through client accounts of which the Libyan people must now repay with eyewatering interest rates.
The Ramis Fund is considered to be one of the most progressive investment vehicles to emerge from the British Virgin Islands in recent years “...and was rated as one of the best fund managers in the country...”, the County Court in Bristol was told, by way of the affidavit of Christoph Schier its current chair, in a case heard in 2019.
There was a plan prior to 2011 to invest in Libyan oil fields, and to float on the New York or London Stock Exchange. The merger with DEZ Holdings Ltd “..was a prerequisite for future acquisitions of the stock of British FTSE 500 companies was engaged in advanced negotiations...”.
DEZ Trust Holdings Trustees, the majority shareholder in DEZ Holdings, was a shareholder in a Cayman Islands company called Churwitz Stanford AG Holdings Ltd which by way of companies in Guernsey held shares in The Ramis Fund. Dividends paid by The Ramis Fund flowed through this structure to DEZ Trust, and from there to its shareholders.
According to DEZ Trust, dividends and other payments made by The Ramis Fund flowed into this structure in 2011. As part of a share buyback, DEZ Trust received £1.14 billion in early 2012, £500 million of which was paid out as a dividend to its shareholders. In December 2013, a further dividend of £500 million was paid. These dividend payments went to trusts linked to seven individuals and into funds controlled by the trusts, some of which ended up domiciled in Guernsey, according to DEZ Trust Holdings Trustees chair Christoph Schier in his affidavit.
The affidavit was part of an application, heard by His Honour Judge Russen, for the enforcement of court judgments against assets domiciled in United Kingdom and Europe worth approximately £450 million.
The funds were first frozen following the 2011 sanctions brought against the State of Libya by the United Nations under UN Resolution UNSCR 1970 (2011) and Council Regulation (EU) No 204/2011. The court order, which lasts indefinitely, save for applications made to competent authorities named within Council Regulation (EU) No 204/2011.
Repeated successful requests for court orders mean the money is still frozen, 9 years later. Schier says the assets are to be seized following the State of Libya defaulting on the terms of a £1.75 billion promissory note signed by Colonel Gaddafi in 2011 to acquire a company who assets and resources were to be used to meet the Libyan humanitarian needs during the biting UN sanctions in 2011.
In a separate matter Financial Fraudster News Investigations has seen court filings in proceedings at the High Court Queen’s Bench in September 2012 an indefinite European Enforcement Order was granted against the Libyan Investment Authority and its subsidiary Libyan Foreign Investments Company for £266m. With interest of 8.5%, the amount has ballooned to over £450m.
The assignee's of the debt and a group creditors which includes KB Trust Company who Saleem Iqbal is thought to be a beneficiary, so far creditors have failed to meet with any Libyan officials with the necessary authority to settle the debt due to the ongoing instability and civil unrest in Libya now governed by tripartite government who each appear to hold wholly different underlying motives in guiding the country out of its current plight.
Financial Fraudster News Investigations has been shown documents that show exasperated creditors that include FTSE 250 companies who have siezed upon the default rates of interest as an investment opportunity in soverign debt have run out of patience and seek to recover cash from assets peppered across the UK and Europe that European Enforcement Order allows.
Financial Fraudster News Investigations: The Libyan government has declined to comment on this article.
Article Link: Millions flow from Gaddafi’s ‘frozen funds’ to unknown beneficiaries
