Weep for Wales 18

PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR

I hadn’t planned on writing another Weep for Wales so soon after the previous one but, you know how it is, things just crop up.

A LETTER IS DELIVERED

What cropped up was a letter I received on Saturday morning, delivered by Royal Mail. A letter giving information on the latest goings-on at Plas Glynllifon.

Here it is. Just click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge

Although it’s dated last Tuesday it wasn’t posted until Friday. Was someone in two minds about sending it?

You’ll also see that the letter contains links that are of course useless in a printed letter. This suggests that the original intention might have been to send this letter as an e-mail, or perhaps as an attachment to an e-mail.

What the writer wants me to know is that Paul and Rowena Williams have a new ‘best friend’, ‘partner’ and ‘investor’, and he is David Russell of the Property Alliance Group of Manchester.

To avoid us viewing David Russell entirely as a victim the writer adds that, ‘David isn’t whiter than white’. The fact that Russell is referred to twice as ‘David’ suggests that the writer knows him.

David Russell. Image: Manchester Evening News. Click to enlarge

Yet the writer claims to be an ‘ex-employer’ (sic) of Paul and Rowena Williams, which is odd. The writer must have left the Williams’ employ very recently to know the new boy. But everything’s been closed down for a while and the Williamses are now holed up at Little Hereford, so who have they employed recently?

The writer also wants us to know that ‘Paul has a number of court cases currently ongoing and people are suing him for theft and fraud, along with many other financial related matters’. That may well be true, so what’s new?

Though let’s not be too harsh on Paul Williams, a man cursed with an appalling memory. Evidenced a few years back when he set up the company, Leisure & Development Ltd, to buy hotels that he and his good lady wife already owned!

Not only that, but he borrowed millions of pounds from NatWest Bank to buy those hotels that he already owned!

This state of confusion saw him ‘sell’ the company in February 2018 to an old friend and time-served fraudster, Keith Harvey Partdridge. Partdridge then closed the hotels, dozens of people lost their jobs, suppliers and tradesmen went unpaid.

From the most recent administrator’s report for Leisure & Development Ltd. Click to enlarge

The £1.29m shown as ‘Paid to date’ represents the money realised from the sale of the properties Paul and Rowena Williams paid £13m for when they bought them from themselves.

As an example of their pitiable state, they paid themselves £2,881,599 for the Knighton Hotel in July 2015, but when it was sold by the receiver a few months ago (pre-Covid) it realised just £300,000.

Throw in the differences on the other properties and it soon accounts for the £6.2m NatWest is chasing. For of course, with his terrible memory Paul Williams had forgotten to pay back the bank . . . from the £13m he paid himself, but wasn’t paid by Keith Partdridge.

No, wait . . .

I’m sure Dudley Cross of Lambert Smith Hampton can throw light on the valuations that resulted in Paul and Rowena Williams making such tear-jerking mistakes. For Dudley was very close to Paul and Rowena over a number of years.

Dudley Cross of Lambert Smith Hampton. Click to enlarge

By the time the results of their confusion became known in Powys, Mr and Mrs Williams had wandered up to Gwynedd, where delusions of grandeur was added to memory loss, leading to them playing Lord and Lady Muck at Plas Glynllifon.

But Cross stuck with them. And for the Plas Glynllifon Open Day in June 2018 Dud even put on his peaked cap to act as a guide!

I thought about the letter’s contents before the 12:30 kick-offs on Saturday, hoping the Swans game was being televised. (It wasn’t.) My thoughts led me to conclude that whoever wrote this letter clearly knows how Paul and Rowena Williams operate. (Who doesn’t by now?)

The writer would also seem to know David Russell, and isn’t averse to snidely drawing my attention – in one of the links – to a MEN story about Russell speeding in his Bentley Bentayga.

I considered the possibility that tittle-tattle such as I had been sent could have been picked up in Manchester property circles easier than in the proximity of deserted properties in Gwynedd.

And so I thought, who do I know who is familiar with the Williams gang and has links to Manchester? To help find an answer I pulled up a letter I received from Myles Andrew Cunliffe last August and compared it with the letter delivered on Saturday.

The addressee on the letter received on Saturday has been partly redacted. Click to enlarge

In both letters the addressee is on the left and it’s spelled ‘Mr.’, but how many use a full stop after ‘Mr’? Then there is the comma following the salutation, which is correct, but something many people nowadays seem to ignore. Both letters are made up of relatively short paragraphs, which are spaced and not indented. With single spacing after each sentence.

But what struck me most was the date. Which on both letters is on the right-hand side (I centre it); on both letters the date is underlined; there is a colon after ‘date’/’dated’; a superscript ‘th’; and no comma between month and year. The chances of two different people writing the date in that manner must be slim.

And then there’s the address. If this letter came from a former employee of the Gruesome Twosome in Gwynedd, to someone else in Gwynedd, then putting ‘Wales’ in the address is rather unnecessary.

Talking of my address, how would a former employee of Paul and Rowena Williams know my house number? Yet Cunliffe knows where I live because his boy Hindle has put threatening letters through my door, twice.

Then there’s the final paragraph and its allusion to driving out invaders.

As if somebody is trying a little too hard to appeal to ‘Jac o’ the North, Unreconstructed Nationalist’.

Despite all this, I’m not saying that Myles Andrew Cunliffe wrote the letter I received on Saturday. I’m just saying that someone less generous than me might point a finger in his direction.

I’m certainly not convinced that the letter came from a former employee of Paul and Rowena Williams.

Given that North Wales Police seems to be taking greater interest in this whole business I sent them a copy. And seeing as David Russell is mentioned in the letter it’s only fair that he should know what someone is saying about him, so I’ve also sent a copy to him c/o the Property Alliance Group.

FOOLS’ GOLD

Let’s put this latest development into context.

I’d ignored those associated with Plas Glynllifon and Seiont Manor Hotel since Weep for Wales 16 was published on the second day of 2020. Until, that is, Myles Cunliffe goaded me back into action by renaming his company Waterford Interiors Limited Royston Jones LL36 9YF Limited.

This resulted in Weep for Wales 17 last week.

Yes, I know, Cunliffe ceased to be a director last November; the only director listed with Companies House now is the Thomas Jacob Hindle I mentioned earlier, the ‘postman’, but that’s just for appearance. Hindle fronts for Cunliffe just as Cunliffe fronts for Jonathan Disley, the ‘King of Marbella’.

In last week’s post I referred in passing to another Cunliffe, who had been a director of Goldmann and Sons PLC, along with Myles Cunliffe. This company being one of a veritable stable of ‘Goldmann’ companies.

UPDATE 23.06.2020: A comment made to this post satisfies me that the other Cunliffe involved with Goldmann and Sons PLC was a victim of crime rather than a perpetrator.

You’ll see that a number of the companies changed their name to Cunliffe Rogers and Ellis. The ‘Ellis’ is Tom Ellis, Disley’s son-in-law, the ‘Cunliffe’ is Myles Cunliffe, and the ‘Rogers’ is Dennis Rogers.

Even though Goldmann and Sons was dissolved in June 2019 someone forgot to close the Twitter account. And in case it disappears, I’ve done a screen capture.

Click to enlarge

Though there seem to have been a number of Goldmann and Son Twitter accounts.

All offering the same thing – no questions asked loans to businesses drifting towards Shit Creek. How it worked is explained here. And in the capture below from the linked article.

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Dennis Rogers is the man linked with the money that swung Brexit. Done through Rock Holdings Ltd, of which Rogers was a nominee director. (But who nominated him?) Rock Holdings was based across the street from an address Rogers himself used on South Quay in Douglas. Explained in Weep for Wales 13.

But Rogers was a busy boy, into everything.

Let’s go back to Goldmann and Sons, to the Filing History, where we see entries for 01 May 2018. Telling us that Myles Cunliffe became the ‘person with significant control’, replacing Islandwide Advisory Ltd.

Islandwide Advisory Ltd was Incorporated 31 March 2010 as Island Wide Properties Ltd. It first directors were Dennis Rogers and Jodie Lee. Ms Lee soon became Mrs Rogers.

Islandwide Advisory Ltd was De-Registered as a company by the Isle of Man Department of Economic Development 18 May 2016. But it took nearly two years before Companies House was notified.

Dennis Rogers has long-standing Isle of Man connections, he was even said to have been an advisor to the IoM government.

The Goldmann companies are now all dissolved (most of them in 2019), with the exception of Goldmann and Sons (Spain) Ltd which changed its name to Cunliffe Rogers and Ellis Capital (Spain) Ltd.

This company currently has no directors. Confirmation statement and accounts are overdue, and I hope nobody at Companies House is waiting for these documents – cos they ain’t coming. This is another abandoned ship that, to believe what was filed, never did anything more than change its name and its address.

So many ‘Goldmann’ companies, and none of them apparently doing anything. No accounts filed. Nothing paid to HMRC. Just empty hulks drifting aimlessly on the ocean of (SIC) ‘Financial intermediation’.

Now let’s turn to Phillip John Cunliffe, who we find in a company called Disley Aviation Ltd, now defunct. In addition to Disley Aviation this Cunliffe has a string of dissolved companies to his own name.

So there are two Cunliffes, who have been involved with Jon Disley for at least a decade. With Rogers providing the Isle of Man connection and the faintest aura of respectability.

Dennis Rogers, the man who knows where Arron Banks’ Brexit money came from. Image: Warrington Guardian. Click to enlarge

Because for a brief period – and perhaps as a reward for his role in ‘shepherding’ the Brexit money – Rogers was the Brexit Party candidate for Warrington South. But his bid for Westminster was thwarted when electors started asking where he lived.

Disley, Ellis, the two Cunliffes, Rogers et al; one big happy family.

A BRIEF MESSAGE FOR DAVID RUSSELL

I don’t know you but I feel entitled to address you, on the assumption that you are now involved with Plas Glynllifon and Seiont Manor.

If you’re an honest man, then my advice is to get out while you can. If, on the other hand, you know what you’ve got involved with – welcome to the Weep for Wales saga!

♦ end ♦

UPDATE 23.06.2020: Received an e-mail from Ralli Solicitors LLP of Manchester on behalf of Myles Andrew Cunliffe. Is he saying he didn’t write the two threatening letters he sent me?

Does the message suggest that Cunliffe has forsaken his old cronies and is now following the path of the righteous?

Click to enlarge



Weep for Wales 13

PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR

LET’S RECAP . . .

I suppose the obvious place to start is with an update, or perhaps a brief résumé for those new to the saga. This approach will also help me ease back into the saddle.

Paul and Rowena Williams are an unsavoury couple who, by various means, built up a portfolio of hotels and pubs in Wales, England, and Cornwall. In 2015 they formed a company, Leisure & Development Ltd, that ‘bought’ properties they already owned at greatly inflated prices.

Paul and Rowena Williams. Click to enlarge

Obviously, no money changed hands but thanks to the grotesque over-valuations mortgages were secured against these fictitious purchases. This of course was classic mortgage fraud.

Though lenders would have required valuations, and I have always suspected that these were provided by Dudley Cross of Lambert Smith Hampton. Cross had worked with the Gruesome Twosome for years, he even served as a director of Leisure & Development Ltd until the whole shooting match was allegedly ‘taken over’ in February 2018 by convicted fraudster Keith Harvey Part(d)ridge.

The valuations were done in 2015, Cross joined the company in 2016.

Click to enlarge

UPDATE

A while back I drew up a list of the companies with which Paul and Rowena Williams were involved. You can see it below, and here’s the pdf version, with working links to the Companies House entries.

Now for the latest news, working down the list from the top . . .

Click to enlarge

There are moves by Companies House to strike off Polvellan Manor Ltd, the two-month notice dated 2 July. The last document filed was micro company accounts in April last year, showing a loss of  £1,033.

You’ll notice one charge against this company in favour of Debra Oswald, who is Paul Williams’ sister. To help you understand the chicanery behind this ‘loan’ I urge you to read this document sent me by someone who’d had dealings with Paul Williams in Cornwall.

The document is quite long, but it explains so clearly how Paul Williams operates.

UPDATE 18.09.2019: Polvellan Manor Ltd was dissolved via compulsory strike-off (by Companies House) on 17 September 2019.

As reported, Rural Retreats & Development Ltd now has Myles Cunliffe and Paul Williams as directors with Cunliffe’s company Mylo Capital Ltd having ‘significant control’. The company address has moved from Plas Glynllifon to the second floor of 9 Portland Street in central Manchester. An address where we’ll find a number of Cunliffe companies.

There are seven outstanding charges with Together Commercial Finance Ltd.

Leisure & Development Ltd was the main company for the Williams’ property empire and as I’ve mentioned this was supposedly bought on 1 February 2018 for £11m by Keith Harvey Part(d)ridge and Sukhbinder Singh Heer. As previously reported in this series, this company is now in administration.

There are twelve outstanding charges, nine with National Westminster Bank Ltd and three with Together Commercial Finance Ltd.

Leisure & Development Ltd Licensed LLP went belly-up in July 2016.

There were moves to voluntarily strike off Rural Retreats & Leisure UK Ltd in the middle of last year but it struggled on with Michael Jones at the helm. Jones was lost overboard on 31 July, which leaves this Mary Celeste of a company adrift.

A company with no nominated director is not a legally constituted company, so this irregularity has been referred to Companies House.

There is one outstanding charge with National Westminster Bank Ltd.

Next up is Plas Glynllifon Ltd, where we find the Williams duo and Cunliffe listed as directors. With shares split equally between Rowena Williams and Mylo Capital. Despite the name, the company’s address is now on the second floor of the Manchester building I mentioned earlier.

More importantly, perhaps, Companies House has given notice that Plas Glynllifon Ltd risks being struck off in mid-October. This of course may be the desired outcome, because . . .

Click to enlarge

There are eight outstanding charges, all with Together Commercial Finance Ltd.

Gwesty Seiont Manor Ltd was dissolved in May.

Finally, we have the Seiont Manor Hotel Ltd, which might now be dissolved, seeing as Companies House issued the notice on 25 June.

All of which suggests that the Williams portfolio is now reduced to Rural Retreats & Development Ltd. Though with nothing filed with Companies House since February, and seven outstanding charges, the future of this survivor must also be in question.

UPDATE 2

Which takes the form of a quick roundup of changes I’ve been informed of in recent months. A few snippets from hither and yon.

Rikki Reynolds, right-hand man to Paul and Rowena Williams, said to know where the bodies are buried (metaphorically speaking), and who was running the Seiont Manor hotel, was sacked in March(?), presumably by Cunliffe. 

He is believed to be writing his memoirs.

On April 3 new company Seiont Manor Ltd, sole director Myles Cunliffe, transferred its address from Manchester to the hotel of the company’s name.

On July 8 North Wales Live reported Myles Cunliffe saying, ‘they were in the final stages of selling the site after coming to the conclusion they are not able to complete the redevelopment. He said: “At the mansion (Plas Glynllifon) it has not been feasible to take the site forward, we have not been able to realise Paul’s dream for the site and need a hotelier now to take the site to the next level.’

Pure bullshit. There’s more chance of sighting Lord Lucan riding Shergar through the grounds than there is of finding a ‘hotelier’ to take over a vast and cripplingly expensive to maintain building in the wrong location.

Plas Glynllifon. Click to enlarge

According to the administrator’s progress report on Leisure & Development Ltd, dated August 9, here is the state of play with the various properties:

  • The Knighton Hotel went to auction May 9, but failed to reach its reserve price.
  • The Radnorshire Arms in Presteigne is also unsold but there is interest.
  • The Bird in Hand (Ironbridge, Salop) continued trading, contracts being drawn up. So by the time you read this it might have been sold.
  • The Castle Inn and caravan park (Wigmore, Herefordshire) has been sold.
  • The Salutation Inn and caravan park (Berwick-upon-Tweed) sold for £215,000.
  • The Waves Bar and Resort (Seaton, Cornwall) sold in April for £501,000.

It seems the administrator might be stuck with the Knighton Hotel. A large establishment – made up of two separate buildings – with the sale complicated perhaps by the Williams duo still owning parts of the whole, certainly the former retail unit at ground floor extreme right.

Knighton Hotel. Click to enlarge

Going back to the administrator’s progress report, I found Appendix B interesting for it lists the creditors, something we’ll look at in a minute.

In the Notice of administrator’s proposals, dated 10 September 2018, we read that the six properties we’ve just looked at were valued at £11,887,828, according to documents lodged with the Land Registry.

Click to enlarge

So in 2015 Paul and Rowena Williams claimed to have paid £11,887,828 for those six properties, three of which have now been sold for perhaps just one million pounds. The largest, the Knighton Hotel, failed to reach its reserve price of £350,000 at auction.

As a matter of interest, according to the Land Registry document, Paul and Rowena Williams ‘paid’ £2,881,599 for the Knighton Hotel in 2015.

The most the administrator will make from the sale of all six properties is maybe £2m. Yet as you can see in the table below, taken from the same administrator’s report, NatWest is owed £6.2m on those properties. How is this possible?

Click to enlarge

It’s explained by Paul and Rowena Williams inflating the valuations to gain mortgages, in line with the example of the Knighton Hotel. And remember, they already owned all six of the properties, so they paid nothing!

With the £6.2m figure accounted for by perhaps 50% mortgages on inflated ‘purchase’ prices plus interest.

Clearly, NatWest will be lucky to see a third of what it’s owed by Leisure & Development Ltd. Or less, after the administrator and others take their cut.

And spare a thought for the ‘Unsecured creditors’, owed £306,961.36. These will be suppliers, local tradesmen, staff, and others who really can’t afford to lose money, but these poor buggers won’t see a penny.

Moving on . . .

MYLES CUNLIFFE AND FRIENDS

To believe the Daily Post, when Paul and Rowena Williams were at their lowest ebb a knight in shining armour came galloping in to rescue them. Under the gleaming armour was the manly physique of ‘finance guy’ Myles Andrew Cunliffe.

I always had doubts about Cunliffe, who was after all a small-time operator, offering finance on second-hand cars – why the sudden jump to stately homes? I touched on the answer in an update to Weep for Wales 12, in which I mentioned Jonathan Disley, ‘the King of Marbella’.

The link might be Neil George Cunliffe, who lives in Marbella. The two Cunliffes are from the same area and it’s reasonable to assume they’re related. And I find it difficult to believe that Neil Cunliffe, living in Marbella, does not know ‘the King’.

More recently, it seems Disley has been looking for investment opportunities back in Blighty, maybe Brexit has prompted this return. If so, this might be ironic, as I’ll explain in a minute.

Among the investment opportunities being considered was Blackpool football club. For it was being reported last year that Disley was in negotiations with Owen Oyston, the unpopular owner, to buy him and his family out. Also seen with Oyston in the directors’ box at Blackpool were Myles Cunliffe and Dennis Rogers.

Click to enlarge

So who is Dennis Rogers? Well, as you might have guessed, he’s another ‘businessman’, one who’s been involved in quite a few companies with Cunliffe. Companies such as Etaireia Investments PLC (both resigned as directors 27 March, 2019), Get Me Finance Ltd, Mylo Capital Ltd and Goldmann PLC (formerly Cunliffe Rogers and Ellis Capital PLC), which they both joined as directors 11 December 2018.

In fact, Rogers is quite an interesting character for a number of reasons. Earlier this month he was announced as the Brexit Party candidate for Warrington South . . . and then, two weeks later, he wasn’t. The story behind this abrupt change takes us to the heart of the possible Brexit connection.

Some trouble-making local checked Rogers out on the Companies House website and found that he had an Isle of Man address. Perhaps this one. Obviously there were some objections to this Manx resident standing for Warrington.

Though if you look at the address given for the company you’ll see that it’s in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, where Rogers lives. That confusion is not clever.

But now it gets really funny, so stick with it . . .

After working as a Strategic Business Advisor for the IoM government Rogers kept up the pretence of Manx residency. But then, the fuss over his candidacy, and questions as to where he lived, and whether he paid tax, alerted HMRC, who I’m told are now making enquiries.

Though his IoM connections get even more interesting when I tell you that Rogers was a nominee director of Rock Holdings Ltd. And if Rock Holdings rings a bell then it might be because it’s the company that many allege Arron Banks used to channel money into the 2016 Leave campaign.

“A nominee director is a director appointed to the board of a company to represent the interests of his appointor on that board. He may be appointed by a shareholder, a creditor or another stakeholder”. So who appointed Dennis Rogers?

The Banks connection is spelled out in this report from Manx Radio from just a week ago: “Earlier this year, the Manx businessman (Rogers) was named as a nominee director for Rock Holdings Limited, a company which forms part of Arron Banks’ insurance empire.”

I bet you’re glad you stuck with it!

Going back to Goldmann PLC, we see that the secretary is Sean Colin Hornby. Hornby was a Labour councillor in Bolton until some misunderstanding over unlicensed taxis led to him standing as an Independent before he joined Ukip. Despite the rise of the Brexit Party Hornby stuck with Ukip and his loyalty was rewarded with re-election in May.

Click to enlarge

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER

The bottom line is that Cunliffe and Rogers work for Disley or, as it was put to me, they’re his front men. They are, effectively, employees.

It is further suggested that Goldmann PLC is Disley’s company. Rogers was removed as a director on August 16 due to the attention he was attracting from HMRC and possibly other agencies.

Something else that may be connected with the unwanted attention is that until 19 August Goldmann Ltd was known as Cunliffe Rogers and Ellis Capital PLC. I’m told that ‘Ellis’ is Tom Ellis, Disley’s son-in-law.

Obviously we are dealing here with ‘colourful’ and unorthodox businessmen, where what you see ain’t always what you get. The sort of people I write about all the time. Too often, in fact, because Wales attracts so many such chancers.

Which is why I find the Brexit angle, and the possibility it throws up, a welcome diversion. Let me explain.

Earlier I provided an IoM link for Dennis Rogers. The company was National and Commercial Extwistle Ltd, with Rogers giving his address as the Trafalgar pub on the South Quay in Douglas.

In the image below, the Trafalgar pub is the white building on the left, and the redbrick building behind the pub is what I suspect are the old offices of Manx Gas, with the company’s new office building on the right. The old building is now called Murdoch Chambers.

Image courtesy of Google. Click to enlarge

Why am I telling you this?

Because in this report – and I can recall watching it on Newsnight – John Sweeney locates Rock Holdings’ (the Banks’ company we looked at just now) address to Murdoch Chambers. The report says:

“At the time of the referendum, Rock Holdings’ address had been registered at Murdoch Chambers, South Quay, Douglas, Isle of Man.

Newsnight visited the island this week and its first stop was to Murdoch Chambers, which now appears to be an accommodation address, facing a gas showroom overspill car park. The door was locked and no-one answered.”

I know the Isle of Man isn’t that big, and Douglas is a fairly small town by mainland standards, but even so, Banks and Rogers being neighbours strikes me as one hell of a coincidence.

Another company I found giving the Trafalgar pub as its address was The Bullion People Ltd. Secretary and sole director Jodie Rogers. This company was Incorporated 4 September 2012, filed nothing, and was dissolved 13 May 2014.

A further company registered in a pub that called time for the last time in February 2010 was The Cash Point Ltd. Same pattern, single share held by secretary and sole director Jodie Rogers. Incorporated 6 September 2012, nothing filed, dissolved 6 May 2014.

And it’s the same with the Dennis Rogers’ company. He served as secretary and sole director, the company was set up 2 February 2017, filed nowt, and dissolved 10 July 2018.

But back to Jodie . . . who I assumed was either the daughter born when Dennis Rogers was a twenty-year-old stripling, or his much younger wife.

Dennis and Jodie turn up together in other companies, but in some older entries she’s Miss/Ms Jodie Lee, which suggests they tied the knot. Let’s look at a few of these companies.

There was the Gold and Silver Exchange Ltd and Cash For You (UK) Ltd. Both short-lived and with no accounts published. Then there’s Collateral Business Centre Ltd. (Originally Goldmann and Sons Ltd). Incorporated 6 June 2013, filed only accounts for a dormant company, dissolved 27 December 2016.

Among the directors of Collateral Business Centre was Peter Currie. Check out the companies he’s been involved with, and see how many of them have been dissolved or liquidated after a similarly short existence.

We looked at companies in the Trafalgar with ‘cash’ and ‘bullion’ in their names. Now we can add, ‘gold and silver’, ‘lending’, ‘finance’, ‘currency’, ‘money’, ‘capital’, ‘cash’, and even ‘pawn’.

Companies that are clearly involved in moving money or trading in precious metals, but they don’t seem to do any business, they never submit accounts, and they go out of business very quickly before there’s too much tedious paperwork cluttering up their palatial offices.

There may be an honest explanation for businesses like this. Though if so, then I’m still waiting to hear it.

CONCLUSION

We started with a couple of shysters and their hangers-on, and it was fairly easy to spot mortgage fraud. I now hear that Paul and Rowena Williams have been offered a very decent sum to hand over Plas Glynllifon, the Seiont Manor, Fronoleu (near Dolgellau), and Polvellan House in Kernow.

Fronoleu. Click to enlarge

We can but guess at the use to which these buildings will be put. But they are unlikely to be renovated. For now we seem to have moved into a different realm. Not only in terms of scale, and opacity, but also thanks to the possible political dimension.

Over the years I’ve copped a lot of criticism, I’ve had many critics, even threats. But it all seemed to ratchet up when I first mentioned Cunliffe, Rogers and Disley. Was it because they were afraid of their business dealings being exposed, or was it due to the Brexit connection?

The usual Remainer theory is that the Leave campaign was funded from the Kremlin, a tactic in Russia’s ongoing attempts to destabilise the West. But I think my old mucker Vladimir Vladimirovich gets a bad press – where’s the evidence he was slipping brown envelopes to Arron Banks or anyone else?

There is no evidence of the money coming from Russia. That £8.4m that Arron Banks can’t account for could just as easily have been found down the back of a Spanish sun lounger.

The links are there for all to see. Or maybe the key lies in the answer to a single question: Who insisted that Arron Banks make Dennis Rogers a nominee director of Rock Holdings, the alleged conduit for the money that might have swung the 2016 referendum?

♦ end ♦

P.S. A message to those who keep sending me letters and generally having unkind thoughts about me. I really don’t care what you get up to in Spain, or England, or the Isle of Man, or Timbuktu, but once you cross the border into my country I will take an interest. Because it’s my country, I love it, and I will protect it from people like you.

The message should be obvious: if you don’t want me to write about you – stay out of Wales.