Lingerie tycoon looks set to make IOM her new home

[The Phantom]

7 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

In the latest development the Guardian reports:

An arrest has been made in connection with the criminal investigation into PPE Medpro, the company that was awarded large government personal protective equipment contracts during the Covid pandemic.

In a statement, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said a 46-year-old man had been arrested at his north London home.

The man is understood to have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud and of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

PPE Medpro secured two contracts worth £203m to supply PPE in the early months of the pandemic after normal competitive tendering regulations were suspended.

The Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, who have both acknowledged they were involved in the company, have previously been interviewed under caution by NCA investigators. Barrowman is not the person arrested on Wednesday.

In media interviews they gave late in 2023, Mone and Barrowman adamantly denied any criminal wrongdoing in relation to PPE Medpro.

The NCA said: “A 46-year-old man from Barnet, London, was arrested this morning at his home address as part of an ongoing NCA investigation into suspected criminal offences committed in the procurement of PPE contracts by PPE Medpro. He is currently being interviewed by NCA officers.”

Doug's older than 46 surely?  Paige might be about that, but lives over here not in London.  Lancaster is much older than the two of them. 

[toonjamie]

Matt Hancock. Right age but I doubt it somehow🤐 

[The Phantom]

6 minutes ago, toonjamie said:

Matt Hancock. Right age but I doubt it somehow🤐 

With the silent 'Han'

[Roger Mexico]

4 minutes ago, The Phantom said:

Doug's older than 46 surely?  Paige might be about that, but lives over here not in London.  Lancaster is much older than the two of them. 

Not any of the (ex-)officers that I could see and even Hancock isn't 46 till October.  But it could be someone fairly minor - they're usually the only people to get arrested in British fraud investigations.

[PSMWhale]

Perhaps Maurice Stimler? He was a director of PPE Medpro alongside AP and per CH he’s 46. 

[Roger Mexico]

17 minutes ago, PSMWhale said:

Perhaps Maurice Stimler? He was a director of PPE Medpro alongside AP and per CH he’s 46. 

That's possible.  I'd picked up on a record that gave his dob as 73, but all the other ones seem to say 78, so presumably a mis-reading, and the address given is in NW2 in Barnet.

[Roger Mexico]

Mr Stimler was mentioned in Private Eye's Profits of Doom supplement, published before the Barrowman/Mone connection was acknowledged.  See page2-3, but worth reading the whole thing to see just how many well-connected others benefited:

OUT OF SIGHT

NOR DID ministers and senior officials seem to have any qualms about the convoluted setups being used to mask the profits being made and who exactly was making them. In late June 2020, a company that had existed for just six weeks, PPE Medpro Ltd, won £202m worth of deals to supply masks and gowns (the latter at a pricey £4.88 each, compared to a pandemic average of £4.50).

The company was supposedly owned by Anthony Page, an Isle of Man trust adviser more used to supplying tax efficiency and secrecy than medical equipment. He would later tell the Eye that “there is a consortium of successful entrepreneurs that have financed and backed [PPE Medpro]”, confirming that he was more nominee than real controller of the company.

More of a clue as to PPE Medpro’s driving force comes from the identity of Page’s fellow director in the company between June and November last year, Maurice Stimler. He runs a long-established import/export business called Loudwater Trade & Finance from premises in Golders Green, London, specialising in coffee, fruit and nuts, with sidelines in luxury goods and medical and dental products. Its turnover miraculously increased by £149m, and its profits trebled to £15m, in the otherwise subdued international trading period covered by the PPE deal. Neither man would comment on Loudwater’s role, but it is clear that large amounts of public money have been funnelled into intentionally opaque corporate structures that hide their beneficiaries.

[WTF]

so the scapegoat has been located.

[Mr. Sausages]

 

[display name]

Bladerunner will be along shortly knocking one out to that photo.

[2112]

An article in today’s Sunday Times, where it is reported that Baroness Mone has hired a bodyguard because of threats and abuse. The IOM Constabulary are also aware of the threats and abuse, however, there will probably be a lot more if IOM Constabulary have provided her with taxpayer funded protection.

[TheTeapot]

The police exist to protect the rich from the poor.

[2112]

1 minute ago, TheTeapot said:

The police exist to protect the rich from the poor.

In reality the should protect everyone without fear or favour, rich or poor. Sometimes it doesn’t always work out like that. 

[Albert Tatlock]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13559529/Baroness-Bra-Michelle-Mone-hires-celebrity-bodyguard-receiving-torrents-abuse-acid-attack-threat-amid-investigation-role-Covid-PPE-scandal.html

[Albert Tatlock]

Labour seem to be promising a lot more investigations into Covid related financing and claims. If they treat it seriously, doubtless there might well be quite a few more cases coming out of the woodwork over the next couple of years.

Estimates of illegal claims and actions around Covid stretch into many many £Billions.

The Mone issue might be just the tip of a very large iceberg - with thousands of others in unrelated Covid frauds not yet found out or investigated properly.