There was a major outcry against Paul Elliott on here when it was revealed that he had used the "n" word in a text message to Rufus. It was one way traffic. I'm not going to link the thread but some of the things that were said about Elliott were done so purely based on their opinion of Rufus. As one person put it, "It's impossible rufus could have done Elliot up as he's a charlton legend".
That text message was leaked to the Sun and that caused Elliott to release a statement and to resign from roles he was involved in with one of those being "Kick It Out". Now there is no way I am going to defend Elliot for using that horrible word. But it was a private text, the word not carrying the same racist connotation given the colour of their respective skins and the fact that we do now understand why he was so angry given the way in which Rufus was committing the shocking fraud Rufus has now been found guilty of. Rufus denied that he was the one responsible for leaking the message but it had to be him or Elliott or one close to either of them but I'm not sure what Elliott would have had to gain by doing so? Anyway, it is clear that the one who was guilty of unforgiveable crimes was, in fact, Rufus.
I've never met or spoken to Rufus but I have engaged with Elliott on a good few occasions - both his sons went to the same junior school as mine but most of those conversations were last summer as he lives right by Bickley CC and every Saturday he would sit and watch the cricket. We spoke about his career in football, of course his time with us and what came across was that he is particularly thankful to the support he received from two Managers - Lennie Lawrence and David Pleat - for the way that they both looked him and his Mum as a young pro finding his way in the game. I can only speak as I find and say that he is most friendly and approachable and seeks out to exchanges pleasantries with those at the Club.
That isn't to say that Elliott might not be as decent as he seems. I would no more totally judge him as a person based on some conversations with him than his footballing career as some seem to have done given Rufus' hero like status for what he did for us as a player that he has now so tainted. It is as difficult to separate the image of him scoring that goal at Wembley from what he has done than I could had it been another player doing the same thing and been found guilty of killing a family drink driving, or of rape or of grooming underage kids or of having cheated with the wife of a dressing room teammate. A lot of those family, friends and the Church in question are likely never to get their money back.
Rufus will serve his time and hopefully come out a better person for it. It isn't Paul Elliott's fault that he has had to do that.
I've not read a report that gives any real details How much did he actually lose ? Elliott ended up in one report i read , so what was his beef (ponzi style payout maybe , he was desperate for his dough back as he was losing ) When he was drawing big money out was that when he was winning or losing ? When he was winning were there payouts and winners So when it goes wrong , how did he not blow the lot .
If he's taking anything out above minimum shit when he's losing then thats wrong but losing to me isn't a crime / stealing is
I've not read a report that gives any real details How much did he actually lose ? Elliott ended up in one report i read , so what was his beef (ponzi style payout maybe , he was desperate for his dough back as he was losing ) When he was drawing big money out was that when he was winning or losing ? When he was winning were there payouts and winners So when it goes wrong , how did he not blow the lot .
If he's taking anything out above minimum shit when he's losing then thats wrong but losing to me isn't a crime / stealing is
You looking for pointers on how to prevent your own "scheme" going pop?
I've not read a report that gives any real details How much did he actually lose ? Elliott ended up in one report i read , so what was his beef (ponzi style payout maybe , he was desperate for his dough back as he was losing ) When he was drawing big money out was that when he was winning or losing ? When he was winning were there payouts and winners So when it goes wrong , how did he not blow the lot .
If he's taking anything out above minimum shit when he's losing then thats wrong but losing to me isn't a crime / stealing is
Rufus had £15m from investors in total and falsely claimed to have made multi-million pound returns for his Church and good returns for other footballers or ex-footballers, for whom he had invested funds but who he said that he could not identify for confidentiality reasons. He claimed to be a successful foreign exchange trader headhunted by the likes of Morgan Stanley, Coutts Bank and Barclays and that, despite the projected exceptional returns, this was a low risk investment in the Foreign Exchange market. Rufus admitted at the time of any meeting that he was not approved by the Financial Services Authority but claimed to investors he was allowed to trade whilst awaiting their approval.
This seems to have been a sort of pyramid/ponzi scheme as he used new money to pay back old money plus so called "returns". Of the £15million paid by investors into Rufus’ personal account, only £7million was transferred into his trading account. He used the balance to either further the fraud by paying investor’s fake profits or simply as his own money. He put approximately £2million of investors' money into his personal accounts, allegedly for the purposes of investment but this was never transferred over to his trading account. In total he cheated investors out of £8m.
Elliott was probably one of the first to invest but he was also a "friend" of Rufus at that time and as such Rufus probably couldn't keep him at arms' length as he could with some investors - including the Church who Rufus supplied monthly reports to. They invested in total £5.1m and £1.4m was returned in the form of "profits" on the basis that the original capital was still intact. Which, of course, it wasn't. The xxxx hit the fan when the FSA froze all of Rufus's account. It is possible that Elliott believed that he still had capital invested but was also upset that he, himself, had referred friends to Rufus who had made serious losses - hence the text. Elliott was one of the witnesses at Rufus' trial.
Rufus was found guilty of fraud, money laundering and carrying out a regulated activity without authorisation. Confiscation proceedings have been commenced to recover some of his ill-gotten gains.
I've not read a report that gives any real details How much did he actually lose ? Elliott ended up in one report i read , so what was his beef (ponzi style payout maybe , he was desperate for his dough back as he was losing ) When he was drawing big money out was that when he was winning or losing ? When he was winning were there payouts and winners So when it goes wrong , how did he not blow the lot .
If he's taking anything out above minimum shit when he's losing then thats wrong but losing to me isn't a crime / stealing is
Firstly - he was not authorised to even give advice on such matters, let alone run any type of investment scheme.
Secondly - he was bandying around returns in excess of 10%....never a good look in any "financial promotion".
Lastly - any money he did pay out (to Paul Elliot mainly) was not based in any returns that had been made but from money he "conned" out of other "investors".
Those 3 alone are worth punishment. Not only has he got to do time he also has to repay back monies he lost his 'clients" (a word I use very loosely).
A great centre half he may have been.....a financial.adviser he was not.
Edit.
Just seen @Addick Addict post. Much fuller explanation to my ramblings.
Setting aside the vagaries of the jury system (frauds are invariably complex and shouldn't have jury trials imo), there was very little doubt that he was going down for this.
A judge in civil proceedings had already described Rufus as a rogue and fraudster. In addition the FCA (and to an extent the CoLP) never take a criminal case forward unless there is cast iron evidence - I stand to be corrected but I think the FCA has close to 100% success on its prosecutions.
It could be argued that they should take more risks but there you go.
I wonder if he went into this scam with the sole intention of running a Ponzi scheme from the outset or somehow or another saw there was a way of fiddling the books that unintentionally became just that…..a classic Ponzi scheme. There was always talk that he was not the driving force behind it and that he was misled and manipulated by a third party. Not sure if that was an established fact, I rather doubt it as I believe no other person has been charged in connection with this scheme. Perhaps someone else can confirm….thanks.
As a footnote,I am expecting him to get around five years, most of which will be served in a cushy white collar open prison.
I wonder if he went into this scam with the sole intention of running a Ponzi scheme from the outset or somehow or another saw there was a way of fiddling the books that unintentionally became just that…..a classic Ponzi scheme. There was always talk that he was not the driving force behind it and that he was misled and manipulated by a third party. Not sure if that was an established fact, I rather doubt it as I believe no other person has been charged in connection with this scheme. Perhaps someone else can confirm….thanks.
As a footnote,I am expecting him to get around five years, most of which will be served in a cushy white collar open prison.
No other person has been charged and Rufus hasn't indicated that anyone else was involved. It was Rufus that met investors and portrayed himself as a highly successful City trader and used £2m of that money on his lavish lifestyle.
It is possible that Rufus benefitted from early trades with his own money and then decided that he would set himself up as an adviser. But he misrepresented himself in that respect because he wasn't authorised, lied about that and the returns he was going to achieve so was somewhat "pot committed" to paying out something comparable - and the only way that he could achieve that was by growing the number of investors. That, in itself, takes a lot of doing and front especially for someone who purports to have the moral compass that comes from being a Christian. Perhaps that is why people believed him given that it is known that he used the Church and their trust in him as a selling point.
I spoke to him in the first year or two of him trading and he was trading commodities fx and all sorts of stuff and he gave no impression of punting for others at that point
I wonder if he went into this scam with the sole intention of running a Ponzi scheme from the outset or somehow or another saw there was a way of fiddling the books that unintentionally became just that…..a classic Ponzi scheme. There was always talk that he was not the driving force behind it and that he was misled and manipulated by a third party. Not sure if that was an established fact, I rather doubt it as I believe no other person has been charged in connection with this scheme. Perhaps someone else can confirm….thanks.
As a footnote,I am expecting him to get around five years, most of which will be served in a cushy white collar open prison.
No other person has been charged and Rufus hasn't indicated that anyone else was involved. It was Rufus that met investors and portrayed himself as a highly successful City trader and used £2m of that money on his lavish lifestyle.
It is possible that Rufus benefitted from early trades with his own money and then decided that he would set himself up as an adviser. But he misrepresented himself in that respect because he wasn't authorised, lied about that and the returns he was going to achieve so was somewhat "pot committed" to paying out something comparable - and the only way that he could achieve that was by growing the number of investors. That, in itself, takes a lot of doing and front especially for someone who purports to have the moral compass that comes from being a Christian. Perhaps that is why people believed him given that it is known that he used the Church and their trust in him as a selling point.
He might have gone to church regularly but he can't have been a Christian in the true sense of the word. The bare faced lies he told goes against everything a Christian believes in. It takes some front to sit in front of family & friends and blatantly tell them a pack of lies over a number of months /years.
I wonder if he went into this scam with the sole intention of running a Ponzi scheme from the outset or somehow or another saw there was a way of fiddling the books that unintentionally became just that…..a classic Ponzi scheme. There was always talk that he was not the driving force behind it and that he was misled and manipulated by a third party. Not sure if that was an established fact, I rather doubt it as I believe no other person has been charged in connection with this scheme. Perhaps someone else can confirm….thanks.
As a footnote,I am expecting him to get around five years, most of which will be served in a cushy white collar open prison.
No other person has been charged and Rufus hasn't indicated that anyone else was involved. It was Rufus that met investors and portrayed himself as a highly successful City trader and used £2m of that money on his lavish lifestyle.
It is possible that Rufus benefitted from early trades with his own money and then decided that he would set himself up as an adviser. But he misrepresented himself in that respect because he wasn't authorised, lied about that and the returns he was going to achieve so was somewhat "pot committed" to paying out something comparable - and the only way that he could achieve that was by growing the number of investors. That, in itself, takes a lot of doing and front especially for someone who purports to have the moral compass that comes from being a Christian. Perhaps that is why people believed him given that it is known that he used the Church and their trust in him as a selling point.
He might have gone to church regularly but he can't have been a Christian in the true sense of the word. The bare faced lies he told goes against everything a Christian believes in.It takes some front to sit in front of family & friends and blatantly tell them a pack of lies over a number of months /years.
What, like the story of Noah you mean?
That's always been my favourite. 2 of everything wasn't it? Although fcuk knows what these animals all ate while they were cast adrift for 150 days .....
I spoke to him in the first year or two of him trading and he was trading commodities fx and all sorts of stuff and he gave no impression of punting for others at that point
I wonder if he went into this scam with the sole intention of running a Ponzi scheme from the outset or somehow or another saw there was a way of fiddling the books that unintentionally became just that…..a classic Ponzi scheme. There was always talk that he was not the driving force behind it and that he was misled and manipulated by a third party. Not sure if that was an established fact, I rather doubt it as I believe no other person has been charged in connection with this scheme. Perhaps someone else can confirm….thanks.
As a footnote,I am expecting him to get around five years, most of which will be served in a cushy white collar open prison.
No other person has been charged and Rufus hasn't indicated that anyone else was involved. It was Rufus that met investors and portrayed himself as a highly successful City trader and used £2m of that money on his lavish lifestyle.
It is possible that Rufus benefitted from early trades with his own money and then decided that he would set himself up as an adviser. But he misrepresented himself in that respect because he wasn't authorised, lied about that and the returns he was going to achieve so was somewhat "pot committed" to paying out something comparable - and the only way that he could achieve that was by growing the number of investors. That, in itself, takes a lot of doing and front especially for someone who purports to have the moral compass that comes from being a Christian. Perhaps that is why people believed him given that it is known that he used the Church and their trust in him as a selling point.
He might have gone to church regularly but he can't have been a Christian in the true sense of the word. The bare faced lies he told goes against everything a Christian believes in.It takes some front to sit in front of family & friends and blatantly tell them a pack of lies over a number of months /years.
What, like the story of Noah you mean?
That's always been my favourite. 2 of everything wasn't it? Although fcuk knows what these animals all ate while they were cast adrift for 150 days .....
I wonder if he went into this scam with the sole intention of running a Ponzi scheme from the outset or somehow or another saw there was a way of fiddling the books that unintentionally became just that…..a classic Ponzi scheme. There was always talk that he was not the driving force behind it and that he was misled and manipulated by a third party. Not sure if that was an established fact, I rather doubt it as I believe no other person has been charged in connection with this scheme. Perhaps someone else can confirm….thanks.
As a footnote,I am expecting him to get around five years, most of which will be served in a cushy white collar open prison.
No other person has been charged and Rufus hasn't indicated that anyone else was involved. It was Rufus that met investors and portrayed himself as a highly successful City trader and used £2m of that money on his lavish lifestyle.
It is possible that Rufus benefitted from early trades with his own money and then decided that he would set himself up as an adviser. But he misrepresented himself in that respect because he wasn't authorised, lied about that and the returns he was going to achieve so was somewhat "pot committed" to paying out something comparable - and the only way that he could achieve that was by growing the number of investors. That, in itself, takes a lot of doing and front especially for someone who purports to have the moral compass that comes from being a Christian. Perhaps that is why people believed him given that it is known that he used the Church and their trust in him as a selling point.
He might have gone to church regularly but he can't have been a Christian in the true sense of the word. The bare faced lies he told goes against everything a Christian believes in.It takes some front to sit in front of family & friends and blatantly tell them a pack of lies over a number of months /years.
What, like the story of Noah you mean?
That's always been my favourite. 2 of everything wasn't it? Although fcuk knows what these animals all ate while they were cast adrift for 150 days .....
Comments
When he's inside doing his time perhaps Scott Minto could get him on Charlton TV. Might be a bit awkward though!
That text message was leaked to the Sun and that caused Elliott to release a statement and to resign from roles he was involved in with one of those being "Kick It Out". Now there is no way I am going to defend Elliot for using that horrible word. But it was a private text, the word not carrying the same racist connotation given the colour of their respective skins and the fact that we do now understand why he was so angry given the way in which Rufus was committing the shocking fraud Rufus has now been found guilty of. Rufus denied that he was the one responsible for leaking the message but it had to be him or Elliott or one close to either of them but I'm not sure what Elliott would have had to gain by doing so? Anyway, it is clear that the one who was guilty of unforgiveable crimes was, in fact, Rufus.
I've never met or spoken to Rufus but I have engaged with Elliott on a good few occasions - both his sons went to the same junior school as mine but most of those conversations were last summer as he lives right by Bickley CC and every Saturday he would sit and watch the cricket. We spoke about his career in football, of course his time with us and what came across was that he is particularly thankful to the support he received from two Managers - Lennie Lawrence and David Pleat - for the way that they both looked him and his Mum as a young pro finding his way in the game. I can only speak as I find and say that he is most friendly and approachable and seeks out to exchanges pleasantries with those at the Club.
That isn't to say that Elliott might not be as decent as he seems. I would no more totally judge him as a person based on some conversations with him than his footballing career as some seem to have done given Rufus' hero like status for what he did for us as a player that he has now so tainted. It is as difficult to separate the image of him scoring that goal at Wembley from what he has done than I could had it been another player doing the same thing and been found guilty of killing a family drink driving, or of rape or of grooming underage kids or of having cheated with the wife of a dressing room teammate. A lot of those family, friends and the Church in question are likely never to get their money back.
Rufus will serve his time and hopefully come out a better person for it. It isn't Paul Elliott's fault that he has had to do that.
I opened his first bank account when he joined Charlton at I think age 16.
How much did he actually lose ?
Elliott ended up in one report i read , so what was his beef (ponzi style payout maybe , he was desperate for his dough back as he was losing )
When he was drawing big money out was that when he was winning or losing ?
When he was winning were there payouts and winners
So when it goes wrong , how did he not blow the lot .
If he's taking anything out above minimum shit when he's losing then thats wrong but losing to me isn't a crime / stealing is
This seems to have been a sort of pyramid/ponzi scheme as he used new money to pay back old money plus so called "returns". Of the £15million paid by investors into Rufus’ personal account, only £7million was transferred into his trading account. He used the balance to either further the fraud by paying investor’s fake profits or simply as his own money. He put approximately £2million of investors' money into his personal accounts, allegedly for the purposes of investment but this was never transferred over to his trading account. In total he cheated investors out of £8m.
Elliott was probably one of the first to invest but he was also a "friend" of Rufus at that time and as such Rufus probably couldn't keep him at arms' length as he could with some investors - including the Church who Rufus supplied monthly reports to. They invested in total £5.1m and £1.4m was returned in the form of "profits" on the basis that the original capital was still intact. Which, of course, it wasn't. The xxxx hit the fan when the FSA froze all of Rufus's account. It is possible that Elliott believed that he still had capital invested but was also upset that he, himself, had referred friends to Rufus who had made serious losses - hence the text. Elliott was one of the witnesses at Rufus' trial.
Rufus was found guilty of fraud, money laundering and carrying out a regulated activity without authorisation. Confiscation proceedings have been commenced to recover some of his ill-gotten gains.
Secondly - he was bandying around returns in excess of 10%....never a good look in any "financial promotion".
Lastly - any money he did pay out (to Paul Elliot mainly) was not based in any returns that had been made but from money he "conned" out of other "investors".
Those 3 alone are worth punishment. Not only has he got to do time he also has to repay back monies he lost his 'clients" (a word I use very loosely).
A great centre half he may have been.....a financial.adviser he was not.
Edit.
Just seen @Addick Addict post. Much fuller explanation to my ramblings.
A judge in civil proceedings had already described Rufus as a rogue and fraudster. In addition the FCA (and to an extent the CoLP) never take a criminal case forward unless there is cast iron evidence - I stand to be corrected but I think the FCA has close to 100% success on its prosecutions.
It could be argued that they should take more risks but there you go.
There was always talk that he was not the driving force behind it and that he was misled and manipulated by a third party.
Not sure if that was an established fact, I rather doubt it as I believe no other person has been charged in connection with this scheme.
Perhaps someone else can confirm….thanks.
It is possible that Rufus benefitted from early trades with his own money and then decided that he would set himself up as an adviser. But he misrepresented himself in that respect because he wasn't authorised, lied about that and the returns he was going to achieve so was somewhat "pot committed" to paying out something comparable - and the only way that he could achieve that was by growing the number of investors. That, in itself, takes a lot of doing and front especially for someone who purports to have the moral compass that comes from being a Christian. Perhaps that is why people believed him given that it is known that he used the Church and their trust in him as a selling point.
That's always been my favourite. 2 of everything wasn't it? Although fcuk knows what these animals all ate while they were cast adrift for 150 days .....
Destroying people's lives should receive the same punishment as physical harm.