Just My Luck!

You may remember Adam Luck. We met him last time he wrote that nonsense in The London Times (that at first he said he was writing for the Mail on Sunday, until they told him they wouldn’t publish it.) He says he is a journalist in London, which is strange, because some of his stories just don’t make any sense at all as stand-alone journalistic pieces. Also, there are so very few stories of his for a journalist, maybe a couple a month at most. But we can get to all that in later posts.

Let’s start with the obvious:

A former public schoolboy has been named as the alleged mastermind behind a multi-million pound property development fraud, according to High Court papers.

Charles Cunningham, whose time at Eton overlapped with Prince William’s, has been identified in court papers as controlling a series of companies used to defraud Asian investors of millions of pounds by enticing them with UK developments that were never completed.

The son of a City financier, Mr Cunningham, whose brother Rupert is friends with some of Prince Harry’s inner circle, lives in a large country estate in North Wales with his wife. The couple boast a who’s who of society contacts.

This was about a property development scheme I wrote about here that I tried to rescue. Adam Luck wrote this story in October 2017. Now let’s look at the lucky wordsmith’s account of Monkey Capital, about five months down the line:

A former public schoolboy has been accused of being the mastermind of a multimillion-pound international cryptocurrency fraud, which netted him $30m and saw one investor commit suicide.

Daniel Harrison, who is the son of a senior City financier, is alleged to have lured American investors with an initial coin offering (ICO), used to fund the creation of a cryptocurrency.

Harrison, in his late 30s, according to US court papers, was the founder of Monkey Capital LLC, a Delaware company, and Monkey Capital Inc, a Singapore-based company, and used them for “fraudulent purposes”. The claims have been made in a civil class action filed in a Florida court. The filing comes amid increasing legal and regulatory concerns about the boom in crypto-currencies.

Aside from the flabbergasting — pretty much self-plagiarised — similarity in the articles, what is startling is that Adam Luck, writing these two articles less than 6 months apart, didn’t pick up on the obvious —that I was involved at some level in both Monkey Capital and ALD. I’ve never hidden that. Not once. On the contrary — in fact, I am proud of my attempts to help salvage two horrible situations, and the strengths it took to stand up to thugs like Luck. In which case, the obvious question is why? Why not mention that I was connected with both? Surely that only serves to make his story better? (Ed: we’ll get there in subsequent posts and media articles in the mainstream press; don’t give the whole story away for now!)

But we digress. Today, I got another Charm-ing e-mail from Luck. I’ll print the whole thing in quotes. Further, just to assuage Luck, I will answer all the questions in detail, not in some backdoor e-mail but in black and white print.

Dear Daniel,

Happy New Year.

I am having a close look at the Absolute Living Developments fallout.

I’ve read your postings on ALD and a number of questions arose.

In light of the Insolvency Service decision to ban you as a director I wondered why the IS had presumably chosen to ignore your evidence? Or did you simply not present it? Or is it another conspiracy?

I simply did not present it. I didn’t have the time, what, with all the chaos you and your colleagues have been causing an innocent person barely keeping his business alive.

As to your stated innocence: I’ve been in contact with Vicky Chong who states that in your assumed role as the white knight of ALD you took GBP14,500 from her and this has not been reimbursed. Is this correct? She also states that she was told she would have to invest £100,000 in order to continue with the scheme. Why?

When I resigned from ALD, I offered everyone who had put down a deposit with my company DMH&CO one of two things: 1) either they could have the money back, no questions asked, or they could 2) convert the deposit into a loan note into DMH&CO. No one was obligated to do one or the other.

Vicky Chong was not in the original group, but phoned our office and literally begged for an appointment with me when I was next in Hong Kong (HQ was in Singapore). I met with her and she pleaded with me to let her invest 4,000 pounds. I declined initially but she was very insistent and so, like any businessman, I said, sure, why not. She then voluntarily topped up her amount another ten grand about a couple months later I believe (I was never party to that discussion which was had with the HK staff, but they certainly didn’t ask her). A few months later, she claimed that she should get back 250,000 pounds interest. We told her that the only way that could be done was if she invested at least 100,000 pounds.

As for a repayment, well, Mr. Luck, I have been struggling to keep the company alive which was perfectly healthy before you and your friends came out attacking it, throughout all last year. If I can make the repayment early this year to everyone — all our loan note holders — I will.

There were some other questions that I wanted to put to you please.

1. What was the total pecuniary reward you received from your work with ALD?

Zero. No, sorry .. minus whatever it was. Hundreds of thousands; maybe a million or so. Don’t take my word for it though — go look it up in the DMH&CO SG and HK accounts. That was because you and your friends, sir. What nice day jobs you have.

2. If these mystery Malaysians were really the power behind the throne at ALD why did all the monies go to UK businessmen, according to the High Court action taken by Ms Brittain.

I have no idea at all. I have been trying to find the answers out myself to some of this, in frustration. Perhaps ask ALD’s accountant, who when I confronted him with evidence of my resignation just blanked me completely. I’ll dig his name out for you if you like?

3. How many other ALD investors did you “assist”, did you take money from them, and was this money reimbursed. If not, why not.

The extremely supportive group of investors — by and large — in DMH&CO numbers about 13 in total I believe. They together committed about a little over a million dollars US, maybe nearer two million dollars US. Things were going well, until you and your friends turned up, Mr. Luck, and everyone was on schedule for prompt repayment. I have the statements to prove it if you want to see?

4. Will you be attending your impending court case hearing in Florida re Monkey Capital?

I have just today sent in the post two motions — one is a motion to dispute the bullshit presented by Silver Miller, and the other is a motion to subpoena you, among others. You can find them here and here.

Various investors do keep me abreast of your developments and they drew to my attention this curious posting: https://thecurrencyjournal.com/2019/01/11/dmh-advises-government-strategy-session-on-blockchain/

I cannot find any record of a Peter Browshare in relation to a “bi-partisan committee” and I wondered if you could explain which committee and which ministers took time off from Brexit to give you a standing ovation please.

Incidentally, I cannot find any evidence that a John Clare, formerly of the Nikkei and AWSJ, actually exists. Nothing in Factiva nor online that I can trace. Does he really exist or is he just you?

Then you’re not the sharpest button, Mr. Luck. Go to our terms and conditions page (it’s in bold at the top bar menu):

Unlike you, Mr. Luck, I advertise it when I write fiction. (Hint: it’s called satire. Chaucer I think is the most famous of the satirists, historically speaking: Secgan? Bidde weder hwa sy saltere? Good old public school boys — we never forget our 13th century English grammar!)

If you could come back to me by Thursday morning please that would be appreciated.

Regards,

As you can see, I gave you an answer in full to all your questions by Wednesday night, immediately upon finding your e-mail in my inbox.

Now I ask you for the same courtesy — by Thursday, tell me who you are (as in, let’s see a photo of you), and who do you work for (as in, let us have another photo please.) It seems fair that when you want to dig through my life and make things up about me, I get to see a picture of you, and get a little resume, surely? So — just in the comments section of this piece, two pictures. That is it.

Well, if you forget, don’t worry, I am sure the world will find out soon enough as it is …

Oh, and Happy New Year to you, too. You’re going to need all the luck you can get, soon enough, after the damage that you’ve done, believe me.

Just My Luck! was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.