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

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This week’s posting began life as a round-up of four separate stories, but one of them grew and grew until it pushed the others out of the nest.

But don’t distress yourselves, for I shall pick them up and breathe life back into them for the next posting.

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RUBBISH, RUBBISH

This piece began when I read something interesting on WalesOnline – and it’s not often I get to write that!

The story was about rubbish dumped behind the Lidl Supermarket in Pontardawe in November 2018. Rubbish that had come from a building in central Swansea.

The guilty party was Gower Way Limited. Given the name I assumed it was local to Swansea; but no, for Gower Way Limited has its registered address in London.

Where it was Incorporated in July 2015, and there’s been no change of name. Suggesting the company was set up in London with the intention of operating in Swansea. Though, curiously, the address transferred from Swansea to London in September 2018 – without any record of it ever transferring to Swansea.

The only director and sole shareholder is Nasser Saleh Alanizy.

The confirmation statement is currently overdue with Companies House. In fact, the company was struck off late last year and restored just before Christmas. Though the contact name given on the restoration document is not Nasser Alanizy but Baber Wassim.

Whoever this is, he’s never been a director of Gower Way. Though if it’s this Baber Wassim, then he has a string of dissolved companies to his name.

The unaudited, micro-entity ‘accounts’ suggest capital and reserves of £874,900 in 2019, down from £1,820,720 the previous year. Made up entirely of fixed assets, possibly buildings.

That’s what’s suggested when we click on the Gower Way ‘Charges’ tab. For the charges refer to a retail unit at 62 Kingsway, and ‘The Box’, in Welcome Lane. Both in Swansea.

I must confess that for a minute this old Jack couldn’t place Welcome Lane and so I had to resort to Google. It’s a short street running down from Castle Street to the Strand. But there’s nothing there apart from an old public lavatory. Is that ‘The Box’?

Indeed it is. As the title document and plan prove. In two instalments totalling £114,210.70 Swansea council seems to have paid Gower Way Ltd to take this old public loo off their hands on a 125-year lease commencing 14 December 2015. Though the charges are dated 31 March 2017.

Over on the Kingsway we find a similar story. Two charges totalling £174,521.97 against No 62. According to the title document the lease only cost Gower Way £80,500 plus VAT, so why did the council cough up £174,521.97?

Was it payment for disposing of the rubbish?

That gives us a total of £288,732.67. So I’m not clear as to where Gower Way’s assets of £879,000 shown in the accounts come from. There must be assets in addition to the buildings in Swansea. Presumably.

To recap; Gower Way Ltd was Incorporated 9 July 2015. The lease for 62 Kingsway was signed 10 September, 2015, and the lease for ‘The Box’ on 14 December, 2015. The four loans from the Council are dated 31 March, 2017.

Does this mean that the Council signed lease agreements with a company that over a year later needed money from the Council to honour those lease agreements?

UPDATE: It now appears that a Middle Eastern restaurant opened in April 2017 at 62 The Kingsway. This probably explains the council loans in March 2017. A Twitter account was started, but never tweeted; and a Facebook page was also opened, and abandoned.

There was even a short-lived company called Feasting House Swansea Limited. Incorporated March 2017, application to strike-off made 18 January 2018. There may have been a restaurant on the premises for a short while but I doubt if that was the primary purpose to which the building was put.

And what were the loans for the public lavatories in Welcome Lane used for?

Swansea council was taken for a ride.

UPDATE 08.09.2020: A source tells me that the loans were linked with Property Enhancement Development Fund (PEDF) and Homes Above Shops (HAS). This Google link suggest that funding was announced for Swansea in June 2014. Gower Way Ltd was formed a year later, almost certainly to take advantage of the funding.

Unfortunately the link only opens The Wave (radio station) home page.

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HOW THEY ARE RELATED

Nasser Alanizy’s Linkedin entry says that he has also been a director of ‘Old House CMC’ since September 2009. I have no idea what CMC stands for, but a Nasser Alanizy is a director of Old House Group Ltd, a company launched as recently as February last year.

Though his day job would appear to be with the Focus Building Group. Or it was until a couple of years ago. But the Focus Building Group doesn’t appear at all on Alanizy’s Linkedin profile.

A bit confusing. And now it gets more confusing.

For another of Alanizy’s companies is Canons Lodge Ltd. The accounts are overdue with Companies House but the latest available accounts, up to 31 July 2018, show ‘Capital and reserves’ of minus £237,000.

And yet, if we compare the accounts for 2017 and 2018, specifically the extracts below, we see that what was £630,000 in 2017 has reduced in the 2018 accounts to £63,000. Is this a typo, the sort of thing that happens with unaudited, ‘do-it-yourself’ submissions, or is it something more?

But perhaps what’s even stranger is that with Canons Lodge we encounter the same four charges with the City and County of Swansea. The total amount – £288,732.67 – is exactly the same as that listed against the two properties in Swansea for Gower Way Ltd.

So Swansea council is shelling out for a building in London!

Canons Lodge Ltd began life with a London address, Then on 24 March, 2017, it transferred its registered address to 62 The Kingsway. The moolah from the council was delivered the following month.

Then, just like Gower Way Ltd, in September 2018 the address was changed to a London address. Both companies eventually settling at 23 Crawford Street, London W1H 1BY.

So what or where is Canons Lodge?

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CANONS PARK

It turns out that Canons Park is a municipal park in the borough of Harrow in north west London, with an Underground station of the same name. The Lodge used to serve as the park-keeper’s residence and it seems that Nasser Alanizy has recently bought the place.

I got this information from Friends of Canons Park, who told me “Mr Alanizy is the resident of the Lodge in Canons Park.  He is a property developer and is trying to adapt the Lodge to create an arts centre and meeting rooms, which the Friends are happy to support as they will directly benefit the park.”

The Land Registry title document for the Lodge tells us, page 3 C5: “(09.04.2014) A Transfer of the land in this title dated 19 March 2014 made between (1) The Mayor And Burgesses Of the London Borough Of Harrow and (2) Intercontinental Developments Limited contains restrictive covenants.” 

So who are the previous owners, Intercontinental Developments Ltd? To begin with, it is registered with Companies House. The only current director is Surmid El Akabi. A previous director – from February 2005 until March 2019 – was Karim El Akabi.

Surmid El Akabi’s Linkedin profile tells us that he is CEO of the FIAFI Group, an Iraqi company, that gets a mention in the Panama Papers. (Click on a node to open links.) There we see Karim El Akabi, and also Namir El Akabi.

It’s reasonable to assume that the three El Akabis are related.

Digression alert!

I came across this reference from 2013 to Namir El Akabi buying the Paragon Hotel in Birmingham. BirminghamLive said: “According to sources, Iraqi owners the El-Akabi family are preparing to invest in a multi-million pound overhaul of the hotel which will see it restored to its former glory”.

The Paragon Hotel was soon being used to house more than 230 young male asylum seekers, placed there by G4S. The owners promised to clean up their act and refurbish the hotel.

The re-named building seems to have operated as part hostel for asylum seekers and part commercial hotel. Last month, the citizens of Brum learnt that it was still housing asylum seekers . . . but without the knowledge of the city council.

Surrendering to the curiosity that would surely have killed me by now if I’d been born with a taste for mice I wondered who owns the Paragon/Rowton Hotel.

The answer is Paragon Investment Estate Ltd, Incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. Presumably a front for the El Akabis because the most recent sale recorded with the Land Registry was the one reported in 2013.

The BVI is also home to Namir El-Akabi’s Almco group of companies. (Again, click on the nodes to open further links.) The man himself is described in this piece from the New York Times of May 2011 as one of ‘The Hot-Money Cowboys of Baghdad’.

Namir El Akabi was one of the wealthy exiles who helped bring down Saddam Hussein . . . and he expected his cut of post-Saddam Iraq. His reach, under Western patronage, also extended to Afghanistan, as this 2019 piece from the Bureau of Investigative Journalists explains.

Namir El Akabi has contacts in the UK government. And so it’s no surprise to find him in 2013 buying a hotel in Birmingham to house refugees, many from his own country. Perhaps he had better contacts than Birmingham City Council.

Recap: This digression came about because the Al Akabis previously owned Canons Lodge which is now owned by Nasser Alanizy who leases the buildings in Swansea with loans from the Council.

Moving on . . .

I can’t help wondering if the modestly-named Intergalactic Developments had plans for Canons Park Lodge that the council made clear would not be allowed. Thwarted, the boys from Baghdad found (perhaps already knew) Alanizy.

There was a bogus ‘sale’, and the council being aware of this subterfuge explains why the Friends of Canons Park tell me, “all his (Alanizy’s) applications to Harrow Council have been turned down”.’

You will recall that one of Alanizy’s companies was the Old House Group Ltd at the popular accommodation address, 23 Crawford Street, London W1H 1BY. The only other director was Mazin Daood.

We find Daood and Alanizy together again at Bombay Development Ltd, which takes its name from property owned in Bombay Street, London SE16. Another director is Ednor Mata of Focus Developments. The shares are divided 400,000 to Focus Developments Solutions Ltd, 700,000 to SSL Investment Ltd, and 300,000 to Mazmo Partners Ltd.

Alanizy is a director of Focus Development Solutions along with Ednor Mata and Gentian Mata. Each holding 100 of the 300 shares. Only formed in June 2018 the first accounts were due 12 March. Companies House is still waiting.

SSL Investment Ltd belongs to a Jordanian family living in the United Arab Emirates.

Mazmo Partners Ltd has Mazin Daood as sole director. But with another person who may be his father also involved.

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PENDINE IS VERY POPULAR AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR

But I have little interest in what’s going on in Baghdad, Birmingham, Abu Dhabi or London. Wales is my concern, and those we’re discussing may now have business interests west of the old home town.

Among the companies using the Crawford Street address we find another with Mazin Daood as director, formed as recently as April this year, Pendine Sands Ltd. The Nature of business SIC tells us: “Support activities for animal production (other than farm animal boarding and care) not elsewhere classified”.

Which I thought was a bit odd, why the sudden interest in animals? Are they hoping to profit from the ‘Welsh Government’s war on farmers?

Whatever the answer, we have an interlocking set of property investors with Middle East connections, one of whom has turned his attention to Pendine Sands, which was famous for land speed record attempts in the first half of the 20th century. You’ll recall that J G Parry-Thomas was killed there in 1927 trying to beat his own world land speed record.

As if that wasn’t enough, there is an Irish company called Pendine Sands 4894 Limited (known as Olympus Leasing 4162 Limited until September 2015). Through a number of intermediaries it is ultimately owned by Goshawk Aviation Funding Ltd, which I assume links with this aircraft leasing company.

There are two other ‘Pendine Sands’ companies at the same Dublin 2 address, Pendine Sands 4832 Limited and Pendine Sands 39621 Limited.

So many companies using the Pendine name could be pure coincidence. Then again, maybe not.

Finally, let’s remember that the UK Ministry of Defence owns over 20 square kilometres at Pendine, which it leases out to QinetiC. We’ve come across QinetiC before. Involved with wayward drones at MoD Aberporth, and through links with Snowdonia Aerospace LLP at Llanbedr.

QinetiC has strong connections with the UK Government’s allies and business associates in the Middle East.

UPDATE 20.09.2020: Well, well, well! RAF lands huge transport plane on Cefn Sidan beach, just a few miles from Pendine.

UPDATE 21.12.2020: This report from todays Western Mail tells us that Carmarthenshire County Council is looking for a private operator to run its £7.6m ‘Pendine Attractor Project’ at Pendine.

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CONCLUSION AND QUESTIONS

As you must know, there’s a lot of money sloshing about the Middle East just looking for a home. Or perhaps a raison d’être.

The City of London and its far-flung empire of tax havens attract this money because no questions are asked.

But I have some questions:

• When and how did Nasser Alanizy make contact with the Council of the City and County of Swansea?
• Why were the ‘The Box’ and 62 Kingsway leased rather than sold outright?
• Why did the Council need to fund the deals for these two properties?
• Has any work been done on either of these properties?
• Why would Canons Lodge Ltd – buying a property in London – need to temporarily move its address to Swansea?
• Were the changes of address connected with the loans, and therefore a deliberate attempt to deceive someone into believing these were Swansea-based companies?
• If so, was anyone at Swansea Council complicit in this?
• Now that Swansea Council is aware of the facts, what is it going to do?
• Is the ‘Welsh Government’ aware of any plans for Pendine relating to the MoD property?
• Is the ‘Welsh Government’ aware of any Middle Eastern involvement or investment at Pendine?
• Can the ‘Welsh Government’ be bothered to make enquiries of its masters in London?

What do you make of it, boys and girls? Answers on the dog-eared postcard I’m sure you’ll find at the back of a drawer.

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