Financial authorities failed to act on allegations of fraud at the jeweller Vashi before the company collapsed with debts of 170 million ($230 million), The National can reveal.

John Ames, a senior manager based in London, told the Insolvency Service he believed investors were being shown wildly exaggerated sales figures and were falling for false claims that the “disrupter” jewellery company held huge stocks of diamonds.

The whistleblower's warnings were made in May 2022 but ignored, and investors, many of whom are from the Middle East, subsequently invested millions into the jeweller. The company’s founder, Vashi Dominguez, disappeared as his firm was wound up in April 2023.

An investigation by The National first revealed a 200 million diamond hoard investors believed existed as financial security turned out to be worth only 114,000. Last week, in a BBC Panorama television programme, they repeated their demands for authorities to examine whether Mr Dominguez’s behaviour amounted to fraud.

Those who put money into the company included some of the most prominent figures in the UK business world, such as mobile phone billionaire John Caudwell and Clive Schlee, former chief executive of the sandwich chain Pret a Manger.

Mr Ames has now revealed he contacted the Insolvency Service in May 2022, after he left his job as Vashi's chief technology officer in January that year. The organisation has the ability to investigate reports of serious corporate abuse such as significant...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMivgFBVV95cUxOWlp6djdmbG4ycUNyM0RFVjBZ...