Brighton SPC is part of a constellation of businesses and funds affiliated with Belvedere Management. We first wrote about Belvedere in March when Offshore Alert claimed the company was one of the most massive Ponzi schemes in history. Not one to mince words, Offshore Alert’s principal, David Marchant, is a brilliant journalist and is seldom wrong.
Belvedere and some of it minions screamed, hollered and threatened but regulators throughout the world began investigating – and taking action against – various Belvedere entities. One of those entities is Brighton SPC. Earlier this year, Brighton principal Nicolaas Faure was quoted in a media report saying, “We expect an audited set of financials within 14 days, but our work points to the fact that the allegations of Brighton SPC being a Ponzi scheme are baseless.”
It appears Faure was lying. In June, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (“CIMA”) put Brighton SPC under government “controllership.” Now we learned (once again from Offshore Alert) that Brighton’s flagship fund, the Kijani Commodity Fund, is a Ponzi scheme. Apparently there has not been a single commodities transaction in the fund. Never. A total scam.
Unfortunately, that scam took in $83 million of money from investors, much of it from Americans.
Overall, Belvedere Management and its affiliates may well have scammed investors out of a billion dollars or more. There are literally dozens of companies and funds, many of them involved in an incestuous web of conflicts of interest and fraud. It could take another year simply to determine how much money was stolen from investors.
If you purchased in a Brighton SPC fund such as Kijani or another Belvedere project, you may be able to quickly get back your money if you invested through a stockbroker or financial professional. Those folks – and the firms that employ them – have a duty to conduct due diligence on the investments they sell and recommend.
There may also be an opportunity to reclaim some of the losses from banks or other third parties that facilitated the fraud or turned a blind eye toward suspicious banking transactions taking place under their noses.
As of this writing, no one has been indicted yet, much less convicted. Although the Belvedere crew continues to claim their innocence, things are looking bad for them and worse for investors.
If you lost money in Kijani, Brighton SPC, Belvedere or their affiliates, give us a call. For more information contact attorney Brian Mahany at or by telephone at (414) 704-6731 (direct).
MahanyLaw – America’s Investment Fraud and Fraud Recovery Lawyers
[There is no cost or obligation for initial inquiries. Most cases can be handled on a contingent fee or success basis. Our minimum loss amount is generally $250,000 but we make exceptions if we can locate other victims who purchased from the same advisor or stockbroker.]