Welcome to Part Three of Silverpoint and the truth exposed, in the first two parts we explained the history of the Trotta family fortune adeptly handled by the financial fixer Kwang Boon Sim. This story certainly has all the hallmarks of a Hollywood Blockbuster movie about organised crime and of epic proportions, in some respects if this went to a producer, they would more than likely say that it was a pure work of fiction and could never happen in real life. Well, unfortunately, it is all too true!
In this episode, we now see that it is time for sheer greed to take over, with the Trotta children and a jealous wife who has been cut out of the will to begin their fight over the ill-gotten gains.
Kwang Boon Sim: The writing is on the wall.
After selling the hotel in Italy for 0ver 40 million euros to a wealthy Asian company, the true picture of the issues begins to emerge. Having extracted over 15 million for Bob and his family in the run-up to his death and the stripping of the cash flow from the company, Kwang Sim now found it difficult to replace the funds, along with the consumer promises to fulfil along with the various other obligations around the world, the trust and the family brought in Alvarez and Marsal of the Cayman Islands to see what could be saved. There was also another motive, they needed to see what options were open to them to avoid spending their inheritance.
What happened next is incredible and almost more deceitful than the 100 million that was extracted and moved around the group without the various local governments taking their rightful and lawful share.
It is a fact that no one likes having to pay taxes, but Kwang Sim is a mastermind in this field and would put the people involved in the Panama Papers to shame. It is fair to say that Kwang Sim knew full well how much trouble he was in with the arrival of Alvarez and Marsal, he began frantically covering his tracks and began the process of going into hiding.
Alvarez and Marsal is a large insolvency company, also known for asset stripping, which is the process of breaking down companies and stripping them of any value. In essence, they are just corporate debt collectors in million-dollar lawsuits, earning millions in fees while breaking up companies with people losing their jobs!
They were employed by the bank and the Trotta family to create as much wealth for the family as possible, regardless of the consequences to people who had placed their hard-earned money into the company and who purchased their products over the years. All this money was paid on the promises of “investments and good returns” which have turned out to be nothing but a fraud.
Enter Alex Lawson, The Liquidator.
The team at Alvarez is led by Alex Lawson, an Australian living in the Cayman Islands, this is another well-known haunt of many international tax avoiders as well as big-time criminals. The Cayman Islands is also a base for many small private banks and the Caymans are very widely regarded as a base for depositing billions in ill-gotten gains.
It is no surprise then that Alex Lawson chose to base himself there and set up the branch of Alvarez in early 2019. His position as managing Director now put him at the forefront of the process and the Trotta deal was his first big assignment. To make a name for himself, he sat with Kwang Sim and planned on how to break up the company with the sole purpose of saving the Trotta family fortune, regardless of who would suffer.
It was up to Kwang Sim to explain to Lawson how he and Bob Trotta had run the global finances. Bob Trotta’s empire by this time spanned the globe with businesses in Spain, Malta, Italy, Thailand, Singapore, and the USA. It was employing hundreds of people around the world along with tens of thousands of owners and members. The plan created by Kwang Sim and Alex Lawson was truly a master plan of deceit and deception. Just like all illusionists, the plan was to create local “fall guys” while at the same time protecting those who put the plans together and executed them in painstaking detail. All the time trying to avoid obligations that existed with hundreds and thousands of innocent consumers.
This was a decision made by the bank which owns the trust along with the endorsement of the family which was then ruthlessly executed by Kwang Sim along with Alex Lawson and his team.
Kwang Sim made a deal with Alvarez and Marsal that he would not be dragged into any issues in return for helping Lawson to execute the plan. Having assessed the obligations which existed, Alex Lawson and Kwang Sim started the liquidation process, the means of which was the use of intercompany debts to justify the placing of the companies into liquidation, thus cheating consumers out of their rightful returns or the ability to use the products they had purchased with their hard-earned cash.
Limora Investments was the first of the companies to be placed into liquidation. In a move that can only be described as incredible, money that had been sent “TAX-FREE” as a loan to the parent company and ultimately to the bank, was now being used as a “DEBT” to induce the liquidation process.
This is an obvious case of corporate manipulation being endorsed by what many would consider a “reputable bank”. Our sources at the time explained that the leaders of the bank are terrified the truth will be exposed showing their complicity which could have the potential of them losing their banking license and the individuals who are running the trust being charged with very serious crimes.
The one thing that is certain is that they are desperately trying to cover their tracks and placing the blame on the people running the businesses for mismanagement.
As with all illusionists, this fraud is using sleight-of-hand techniques, and this is something they are very adept at doing. The bank itself is no better than those people you see on the streets of London or any other city tricking the unsuspecting tourist into finding the ball under one of the cups!
We mentioned earlier that we believe we have uncovered a recurring pattern of how Kwang Sim has moved money around the world, with much of that money being “loaned” from one company to another without any plans for repayment.
Unless these “loans” are repaid with market rate interest, the authorities will see these as dividends, but Kwang Sim’s complex web of offshore companies has made them very difficult to track. In the end, this group of companies have around £50,000,000 yes that is correct 50 million pounds of intercompany debt and Alex Lawson with his team are working their way through a myriad and tangled web of companies, taking over directorships and then declaring them insolvent.
This means that Lawson and his team assess the company’s ability to repay its obligations of the loan and find them unable to, however, the debt is just to themselves!
Meaning they are in control of the company that is owed the debt, but on the one hand, they call in the loan and on the other they claim they are unable to pay. Then we have the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle, Alvarez and Marsal appoint themselves as the liquidators to strip the companies of all assets while also avoiding any debts to anyone else that is not part of the “family!”
The Tangled Web
List of companies with Trotta Family interests filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court Southern District Of New York. Highlighted companies are those linked with European operations.
United States Bankruptcy Court Southern District Of New York Highlighted
Limora Group Chart PDF
So far everything is worthy of the title: Hollywood Blockbuster “The Rise and Fall of the Trotta Empire”. In Episode 4, next week, we reveal more of the deceit which now affects hundreds if not thousands of consumers who have lost millions.
We hope you all had a good weekend and took the time to relax, well, for Baby Dog, who couldn’t go to the mountains this week, a short walk turned into a long walk. Sorry pooch.
