THE ESSENTIALS OF THE CASE: A RECAPITULATIION

It may be of interest to all concerned to have a recapitulation of the critical points in the Coboco case, viz:

1. The Accounts. Investors and creditors still do not know what Coboco did with the money they took on the understanding that they were going to buy and renovate houses. We are not talking about small sums here, but millions of pounds. This is a very serious matter which Liam Collins has dismissed with the terse statement, "The money is spent." He now appears to think that he should be free simply to forget all of that and just get on with his new scheme for tax-free earnings.

2. Trust. Society and business in general rely to a great extent on trust; in fact, business would not be possible without trust. In the case of Coboco, they dishonoured the trust that had been vested in them. Their dishonesty has given an awful lot of work to many people in trying to sort out their mess. It has also caused real hardship to many bona fide investors. All this will eventually come out into the open.

3.  Starting Out With A Clean Slate. This will not be an option for Coboco until they see the wisdom of fully co-operating with the authorities and those they have deceived, to clear up that murky background of theirs. Unless they come clean, they will find that their past will not only continue to haunt them, but will inexorably catch up with them and bring them to book. As we have noted before, the partners are apparently able to argue their way into and out of almost anything, but all that does is to merely postpone the reckoning. This Blog will be following the case all the way through to ensure final fair play. Come clean now, we say to Coboco, and save everyone further trouble in having to deal with you and yours!

LIAM COLLINS IN CHARACTER

The following post is offered mainly for readers who are interested in noting the psychological and social science aspects of the Coboco case. Interpersonal relationships and friendships in the sphere of the performing arts have of course always been famously dramatic and no exception are the two letters we publish unedited herebelow, which are from Liam Collins to Andrea Nova. They are Liam Collins's response to Andrea's to us, which we published as the previous post on this blog. 

1. "Hey Andre nice try with the blogging. I will be listing the contract for all to see tomorrow as well as all evidence of emails to show the tv heads was my idea and I do not owe a mask man 800 pounds. so I now have you for libel too. Ha you're so unintelligent it makes me laugh those bloggers will not take down your statement and its lies as you know it. I could afford to sue you now but the longer I wait the more I get you for.

"you are one greasy balding man. think ill check out flight prices to Trieste I've heard it's nice this time of year.

2. "I take great pleasure in knowing that I have you the best thing you will ever be. Like I said to you all people care about are the masks. You were so sure that you hated the masks and that they were nothing special but now you understand that it's all people care about. Every time you put a mask on I want you to understand that you're paying great respect to the person who invented it. Me. So thank you. People in Trieste in your home town already know you're a fraud. I have only started. I was going to leave it there but clearly you want to make this into something more like a war so lets go. I will have fun seeing you try to convince the public that a) you signed no contract ha what a joke and b) Alex invented TV heads! You are such a greasy lyre and the people of Italy need to know about the man behind the mask. The man who thinks he is above the law, who pays no races, launders money, steals acts. Even the Italian translated said to us "I am sorry for you, the last thing Italy needs is another fraud."

"you sure you want to play these games Andre? I offered to do this friendly but you've ignored me.

"Remember you got paid for every dance you did. You were never deceived once. you went behind my back and to say you only found out about the blog is another lie I told you all about it when I met you. I was open and honest with you. It is you Andre who is deceitful it is you who will be shamed in public. I will not stop until I do to you what the bloggers have done to me. Going to them is fine it simply gives me more evidence for my lawyer.

"Sleep well. You're a loser Andre I knew that when I first met you. You looked like a middle aged man in a baseball cap and my guy told me this guys a loser I should have acted on it.

"For the record your swipes are absolute horse shit, your rhythm is awful. Your moves are at best weak and average. Your crazy rat is heavy footed and lethargic and your teeth look like a witch doctors necklace. You played the goon character because you're one ugly bloke with fungus skin and a shining scalp.

"If you're going to lie at least make them entertaining I look forward to the next blog post.

"I think ill start my own andrea nova YouTube page. I have so many videos and photos. Yes I think I will. Why not you seem perfectly fine lying about me."

Editors: We really don't know whether Andrea actually signed some sort of contract with Liam Collins or not. Liam Collins has told us that he has such a contract and will let us have a copy on Monday next, as he is away. However, in the meantime we must ask: just how many contracts has he himself broken? How many County Court Judgments were issued against him and his partner, and ignored? These contracts were for quite large sums of money, mind, not for a stage act involving photographic paper masks and the music of other artists.

LIAM COLLINS - A CHARACTER REFERENCE FROM ITALY

This message has been sent to us from Italy by Andrea Nova, the man who partnered Liam Collins to reach the finals in the TV show Italia’s Got Talent.

“I am a professional dancer and used to run a dance school in Italy. I came to London last year to do something new and I encountered the worst person I have ever met in my life - Liam Collins. In May 2012 I began performing Faces of Disco (FOD) in the street with him.

“Problem: Collins and his girlfriend Beata Jambor, have been writing malicious stories about me to everyone I know in Italy, including the press, my agent and teenagers picked at random on Facebook, alleging that I am a fraudster, have broken a contract with him and have 'stolen Faces of Disco'. But at no time did I sign any contract with Collins or FOD. Further, dancing with a mask cannot in itself be subject to copyright. People have done it for many centuries.

“Partnering Collins in dance shows, I soon realized that he was not a well-balanced person and as an Italian, I was shocked by the rough way he treated people. I had already entered Italia’s Got Talent (IGT) with Collins before I came upon your Blog and there discovered the extent of his bankruptcy and the way he had consistently deceived his investors. I thought it would be best to dissolve our FOD partnership there and then, but everyone I knew in Italy, including my solicitor, advised me not to lose such an opportunity but to stick with Collins until the show finished.

“As it was, continuing with Collins turned out to be a big mistake. My brother Alex, who works in television, gave us a new idea for the FOD act: instead of masks we could use live TV screens. He provided the technology at a cost of £1,000 and gave of his time without charge. Collins agreed FOD would pay this sum but in the end, he paid less than half.  He is now sending out malicious messages about Alex, because he has danced wearing a mask with me. Collins has written that he wants to bury us both. He also threatened to break my leg. When IGT was over, Collins and I went our separate ways and I did not contact him again.

"Many people in Italy watched IGT and now, when I do a performance, they always want me to do a piece from that show, wearing a mask. I did a lot of work on the IGT competition over a five month period, working on the choreography and the music scores and I'm not keen to just throw it all away. Much of it was my work because Collins is not a professional dancer and doesn’t know many moves.

“Collins is writing foul-mouthed, abusive messages to me and threatening to come to Italy to sort things out. I fail to understand his aggressive behaviour and how he can destroy eveyone’s trust —for example, owing £800 to the man who made the masks for FOD.

"I would like to warn everyone to stay well away from Liam Collins and his associates. His utter dishonesty and habit of lying should be evident to many by now, as he tries to muscle his way through life with a cynical disregard for others. This needs to have all the publicity it can get. Thank you."

LIAM COLLINS EARNING BIG BUT NOT REPAYING HIS CREDITORS!

Ewart Tempest, who is based in Canada, sent us a link to this article about Liam Collins and the Bobsleigh Team:

http://speedendurance.com/2013/03/29/interview-with-liam-collins-400mh-bobsleigh-faces-of-disco/ 

We were amazed to see that in the interview, Liam Collins says:

"Bobsled is mostly self funded so you need to have a job you can do for 8 months so you can go away for 4 months.  Dancing allows me to do this as I mostly street perform when I can. It’s tiring but I’ve managed to balance training and dancing this year. Time management is the key. If you can get sponsors to help you even better."

So we wrote to the editor of Speed Endurance, Jimson Lee, as follows:

In your piece about Liam Collins, Faces of Disco, etc., you write and we quote:

"But there's a lot more to the dancers behind the masks … "

Well, we hasten to assure you that there damn well is a lot more to them! 'Faces of Fraud' would be more apt. Why? Liam Collins owes investors more than £4 million, much of which was obtained through outright deceit and mis-selling. We don't see how, being already bankrupt, he can honestly afford to fund training in the Bobsleigh Team. His investors should be repaid out of money he makes from his street act. Incidentally, we were assured by the Olympic Bobsleigh coach, Gary Anderson, last year that Collins was no longer training with the Team. So something needs to be straightened out in this matter.

Collins seems to be completely indifferent to the misery he has caused to the numerous people who put their trust in his property schemes and he is at present under investigation by the Official Receiver and other authorities. They certainly would question the idea of his financing sports training, if they knew about it! Collins is apparently so keen to make his mark in the world of sports that he is utterly cynical about how he achieves it and has been trying to argue his way out of the crooked mess he is trying to leave behind him.

Here are links to the Website and Blog that we were obliged to create to bring Collins' and his associates' deceitful and callous practices to light. We hope that you will find the time to have a look at them."

NO TALENT SHOW PRIZE FOR COBOCO!

Just a quick note to say that last Saturday 16th March, Liam Collins was entered in the last sixteen acts of Italia's Got Talent, doing his Faces of Disco thing in Rome. Needless to say, he didn't win the competition, which would have netted him and his partner €100,000, but he did receive a lot of flattery which, considering his careless deceitfulness, he doesn't deserve but which will certainly help to build up his rotten ego! However, he says that he spent three weeks in a hotel in Rome, so there seems to be plenty of money coming in from somewhere. We have to ensure that this creep's past catches up with him.

A SOLICITOR ASKS US ...

We were recently asked this question by a solicitor:

"Did Collins & Bone set out originally to act deliberately dishonestly?" 

Our answer follows below:

"Well, it seems pretty clear to most of those concerned that CoBo's intention was to get rich quick, which very soon propelled them into dishonest schemes. Our study of their activities suggests they started out by convincing themselves that their schemes were above board and feasible and would ultimately be rewarding. But we surmise that their dishonesty began at a very early stage and there are a lot of reports going back to their CBS days that support such a conclusion. They may well have told themselves that they would be able to straighten things out as they went along. But they seem to have mesmerized themselves into activities that quickly became wrong-doing, and once they had started, there was no turning back because broken contracts and the associated debts mounted exponentially.

"The deception becomes quite clear by 2010, when they took investment money as the Collins & Bone Partnership. At that time, they would have known that they would not be able to repay monies derived from new bone fide investors, people who were attracted by their suave, confident and deceptive advertising. They also would have known that they would not be able to honour the terms of the promissory notes they were issuing. The fact is that by then they were already deeply in debt. Their accounting was and still is in a complete muddle. To our knowledge, they have not to date been able to produce accounts to the authorities' satisfaction. They always claimed to be running a successful property company, which of course was a complete lie. It is taking a lot of specialists a great deal of time and expense to sort all this out, so these phantasy businessmen continue to be a liability to society."

We would add that while the authorities are having to cope with the tangle of accounts left by Collins and Bone and while those whose money was taken are struggling to come to terms with the way they have been swindled, Liam Collins is having a nice holiday prancing about with his new partner on the Italian TV copycat show Italy's Got Talent. Put that together with all the County Court Judgements against him that he ignored, the money he has taken dishonestly and you get the impression that because he has not yet been called to account by the law, he thinks he can easily get away with it. That leaves the way open for him to live a life with all expenses paid by his victims.

 

NEWS ABOUT ADAVO PROPERTY & MARK BLACK

Latest news from Companies House about Adavo Property LLP - Director: Mark Black. "Unless cause is shown to the contrary," the company will be removed from the register of companies in three months' time for failure to submit accounts. New questions: will Mark Black somehow get his accounts in order? Will he now exit from the property business? Or will he simply start up another company under a different name—as has been Coboco's way these many years? Best to keep a tight hold on one's wallet.

WHAT ARE THEY UP TO NOW?

What are Collins and Bone up to these days? Well, many of our readers may be familiar with their street and stage act, called Faces of Disco, which we have mentioned previously on this blog, and short video clips of which can be found on the internet. 

We are informed that two young men who were not either Collins or Bone were seen performing the Faces of Disco routine in Newcastle recently.  This would suggest that CoBo are recruiting other athletic young men, whom they presumably train, to do the street act. Faces of Disco has received quite a lot of publicity on television and elsewhere and they have their own eponymous website. Clearly such publicity has to hide all of the duplicitous, ruthless, swindling schemes that they have been operating for many years. (As many readers of this blog know, those schemes have resulted in debts totalling £4 million or more, plus a lot of trouble and hardship to their victims).

We would point out to all concerned that the proceeds of the street act Faces of Disco must naturally be in cash. Given CoBo's appalling track record, it seems highly improbable— to say the least—that they are making any kind of accurate and honest declaration of this money to the Official Receiver.  It also seems likely that they are running a scheme in which they train others to do the act and then claim a percentage of the trainees' earnings.

We would appreciate receiving any news, photos or video clips about Faces of Disco that readers of this blog may be able to send in.

NEW YEAR'S WISHES

We take this opportunity to express our hope that all our readers had a thoroughly satisfactory Christmas time. We look forward to the various improvements that we optimistically trust will manifest themselves for us all during the coming New Year. 

We eagerly await news from the authorities handling the CoBo case, once they have recovered, that is, from the after effects of all the festivities.

DAVID BONE JR—DEBTS AND ASSETS. OFFICIAL!

Herewith, an extract from the Official Receiver's statement to creditors regarding David Bone Jr's assets and liabilities. Although the statement is dated 10th October 2012, we had not seen it until now and we think other creditors will find the figures of interest.

Readers will not fail to notice the huge discrepancy between David Bone Jr's declared assets and his debts. It is chilling to consider that without the work of this Blog, CoBo would in all likelihood have continued to take money from bona fide investors indefinitely, on the understanding that they were running a successful company on a completely legitimate basis. That had been their formula for several years and it was working until we started our investigation. We desire no credit for this; we simply point out how a patently crooked formula for moneymaking can continue if the perpetrators are clever and if the victims have no effective recourse.

Any creditor who has not received a copy of the OR's statement of 10th October regarding David Bone Jr's assets and liabilities may apply for one from the OR at the following email address:-

PIU.North@insolvency.gsi.gov.uk

Any questions about CoBo's assets should be directed to the Public Trustee at:-