Our company engaged Mr. Kurt Van Duyn, a South African National, to construct a corporate investment bond in the UK. He initially had good references from a US bond registrar, and 2 associates, so we felt he was reliable.
His stated fee was $150,000, which we paid $50,000 wire transfer, and $100,000 on credit cards, so there would be a paper trail.
Mr. Van Duyn, has a registered business office in the UK, Aggelos Capital at Antrobus House, 18 College Street, Petersfield, Hampshire, England, GU31 4AD, but was initially unable to take credit card payments and so directed us to make the payments directly to Mr. Phillips’ law office office, through his website, as he did take credit card payments.
In total, 19 payments were made to Mr. Phillips starting July 19th, to August 19th, 2019, the total being, $63,338. During this time, I emailed Mr. Phillips 3 times, and called and left a message at his office twice, as I wanted to be sure that everything was correct. He never got back to me, and in fact only got back to me January 7th, 2020, via email, when I sent him an email saying I was going to complain to the State Bar, and other authorities.
Mr. Philips stated in that email that Mr. Van Duyn was his client, and he had been instructed not to speak to me by his client. (Mr. Van Duyn is a former Public Prosecutor from South Africa, and now is in financial services) and that he, Mr. Phillips, had no idea what I was talking about and that as far as he knew, the payments were for due diligence on a mineral project. Mr. Phillips is a personal injury lawyer and this story makes no sense. If we were paying him for due diligence, we would have been his client.
In Oct 2019, after we had tried numerous times to try and find out what was going on, Mr. Van Duyn informed us that our project was not going forward.
We had been told from the start that the bond was pre-sold to Mr. Van Duyn and his investors. As this went along, and nothing ever materialized, the story kept changing, and became a story about a billion dollar deal they were getting paid from, which would then be used to fund the bond, which is NOT pre-sold meaning funds were available as soon as the legal structure of the bond was finished.
This was all done AFTER we had paid him, and we believe our money was used for a “trading program” that was a scam. We asked to see due diligence on the “investor” but were ignored, until finally informed that the project was dead in October 2019. Mr. Van Duyn agree on the 5th of December, to refund the amount in full on January 6th, then nothing happened.
We do know that Mr. Phillips was working in consort with Mr. Van Duyn, and his refusal to reply until being informed of actions against him, is suspicious. I was told by Mr. Van Duyn, that Mr. Phillips did take a fee, for his participation, and wired the rest to Mr. Van Duyn offshore. I don’t see how a US personal injury lawyer has any jurisdiction over being able to deal with our registered bond in the UK. I also don’t know the extent of business the two of them had/have, as they would not reveal this information. Mr. Phillips took $63,338 of our money, for something he claims he knows nothing about, and wired it offshore to a fraudulent enterprise.
A complaint has been filed with the State Bar of Maryland against Mr. Phillips, and as well a complaint has been filed against Mr. Van Duyn with the FCA in the UK, as he violated several items with his fraudulent practices.