Ex paywall: Private Eye’s “balanced” coverage sees it batting for fraudsters

Private Eye has finally got around to the story of how a CEO of serial frauds Paul Mathieson hired goons Zak Mir, Barings Nick Leeson and Seth Freedman, the man paid by Harvey Weinstein to harass women he’d raped, to “destroy” me with a dirty tricks campaign involving Bloomberg reporters, SLAPP orders and weaponizing my mum’s death to protect his latest fraud, Amazing Ai. The facts of all ofthat are clear thanks to a whatsapp group I published HERE.  But Private Eye almost bats for Mathieson as you can see below. It helps those fraudsters and corporate rapscallions who want to avoid my scrutiny. Shame on Lord Gnome.

That Mathieson’s AQSE advisor quit – not in an unrelated way as the Eye implies but because of the criminal conspiracy – so seeing Amazaing AI delisted , that the FCA is now investigating Leeson and Freedman and that Mir has been sacked for gross misconduct from his listed company Lift (LFT) explicitly because of this affairsuggests I am the good guy and the others the rotters. But not according to the wankers at Private Eye.

The magazine, founded by my late uncle, the brother of the woman whose suicide Mathieson and Freedman mocked, describes me as a “former fund manager” who runs an investment website. I was, in fact, a journalist for 16 years before I spent three years as a (crap) fund manager. And I have been a journalist for 15 years since. I am a journalist. Bar that one brief dalliance with the dark sude I am a hack, i is in my DNA. Whether exposing historic abuse at my old school Warwick or fraud here it is just what I do. It is called journalism.

This "investment website" exposes fraud as Private Eye once did too. 

The Eye then talks about my foul language citing an article where I said that a CEO should stick “his paltry $1.3 million WRAP retail offer up his fat arse” . But what of context? Does that matter? Eye readers should have been told the context.

That CEO, at Kefi Gold & Copper (KEFI) will earn more than $1.5 million this year. Of that, a third comes from a bonus triggered by the shares being above 1.5p for more than five days. That happened because the CEO, Harry Adams, stated that $340 million funding for a gold mine was almost finalized with only $20 million of “non dilutive” streaming deals awaiting final sign off. So no more dilution or placings. The shares zoomed. Some folks paid 2p. Ten days later shareholders were shafted with a $45 million 28% dilutive placing at just 1.2p. Some folks had lost 40% in 10 days .

To try and ease their anger Adams offered mug punters the chance to get a few shares at 1.2p in a WRAP Retail Offer. I knew the shares would go below 1.2p ( which they have done) and so as a shareholder myself I told Adams where he could stick his offer. If you offer context my words a) saved folks money and b) were fair. But maybe the establishment fellows at Private Eye reckon that all AIM bosses are fine upstanding chaps and so what if they screw private investors they must not be abused and investors should not be warned off buying an offer?

The Eye suggests that Mathieson and others thought my hurty words “had gone too far.” Let us be clear I never used any hurty words about Mathieson I simply exposed 4 failed IPOs, numerous lies told to investors, how his company had breached AQSE Rules and seen its shares suspended and after being unsuspended said it was going to breach the same rules again. I showed how over the 4 IPOs ( of the same business!) he had made millions in salary and share sales while investors had lost everything. I was exposing a fraud and that is why Mathieson paid the three thugs to destroy me. TO PROTECT A FRAUD. Not because my hurty words had gone too far, becuase my language is colourful.

The Eye alleges that Mathieson thought I was condemning companies for “personal gain”. In essence it repeats the smear Freedman tried to get Meg Short at Bloomberg to publish! What even crazy Meg realized but the Eye seems not to is that AQSE listed companies like Amazing cannot be shorted. You cannot short sell the shares so profit from them going down. Failing to mention that you simply CANNOT profit from an AQSE stock going down is surely a bit naughty is it not Lord Gnome?

In fact 95% of the companies I expose are not shortable which does not bother me as I have never shorted a stock in my life. I earn my cash as folks subscribe to shareprophets to read about fraud exposes and as I could have demonstrated to the Eye, if it had asked, at least once a week I report bent companies to the FCA, FRC or another regulator with often damning results. There was another big win this week thanks to me providing hard accounting analysis to a regulator HERE.I do not scream hurty words at these companies, I use forensic analysis and a legion of whistleblowers, report this and dob them in.

I would happily have put the Eye in contact with those at the FRC or FCA to who I chat to verify this had it asked. It did not. Instead it plants in the minds of its readers that I might actually be an evil shorter ( though that is in nearly all cases actually physically impossible).

I my time I’ve taken on and helped expose multi billion pound, dollar or Euro frauds or impending financial collapses on thus website including Neil Woodford, Tingo, Quindell, Wandisco,  Folli Follie and the 79^th Group. I warned about numerous multi hundred million quid shams including numerous mini bond scams, and slews of quoted companies.

But most fraud is in small caps. And I shall continue to expose it and till the day I die I shall never short anything. Because I am just a journalist and when it comes to exposing corporate wrong doing a fucking good one.

In trying to show balance but failing to show context or report actual facts, in giving smears that cannot be true credence, Lord Gnome should be ashamed.