Raj ShastriOn his website, Bentley driving Raj Shastri states: “My father told me that if you want to do something, find the best person in the field, then copy and learn from them”. He did just that when he and a 25-year old named Alex Hope persuaded investors to part with some £6 million but where he went wrong was that he failed to realise that fraud is wrong. A self declared “property investment expert” and part of the dodgy Inside Track “get-rich-quick” “property investment information company” in the early 2000s, Shastri pleaded guilty to making false representations to investors and promoting a collective investment scheme without authorisation in January 2015. Never has the adage “caveat emptor” been truer.

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Nicholas van Hoogstraten (also known as Adolph von Hessen and born Nicholas Marcel Hoogstraten)
The same people in the Steeple archive

Nicholas van Hoogstraten (also known as Adolph von Hessen and born Nicholas Marcel Hoogstraten)

This controversial tycoon is allegedly worth £500 million and believes Robert Mugabe to be “one hundred percent decent and incorruptible”. Nicknamed “The Maniac in the Mink” and “Nasty Nick”, van Hoogstraten is famed for a still unfinished mansion in Sussex with a frontage larger than Buckingham Palace and being exceptionally stingy with teabags. Of a […]