Complaint Review: Ian Adlington

These guys ripped me off too.  They come on very sincere, very connected and tell you exactly what you want to hear.  Once they have your money, it's lies, stalling and diversion.  I would not have believed any of their story had they not come from trusted mutual contacts.  

Entrepreneurs, startups and growth businesses beware of far reaching fraud.

Ian Adlington represents himself and his Newport Capital Ventures as the authorized fund representative for the Qatar Investment Authority (alternately referred to as the Qatar Investment Fund and Qatar Investment Foundation) and as a fund manager of several other hedge and investment funds and trusts, including Alpine Equity Fund.  In fact, he is affiliated with none of the funds he claims to represent. Mr Adlington takes money from startups, growth stage businesses and entrepreneurs, under the pretense of starting funding flow from the funds he manages.  Typically he takes $25,000 to start the process, but has taken as much at $85,000. The money is paid to Ian via wire transfer, checks by mail or in cash.  The funding never happens. Ian finds enthusiastic and willing entrepreneurs seeking funding through investor groups such as Keiretsu Forum and through other business referrals. Currently, Ian with his accomplice, Newport COO Masha Karubian, is recruiting new victims through her association as Los Angeles managing director of eWomenNetwork, a nationwide business networking group for entrepreneurial women. Ians operating method is to lavish great interest in the company seeking funding with praise and promises of immediate funding.  Once he has their money, he moves on to his next target. Ian tends to keep all communication verbal and is reluctant to furnish term sheets, agreements or accounting or any other documentation or proof of disposition of funds delivered, despite promises to deliver documents  Ian makes it almost impossible to be reached by phone, text or email.

To date, not one of the entrepreneurs from whom he has taken money from has been funded. After several months of unfulfilled promises, many victims have requested their money back.  No victim has had their money returned when a refund was requested. Ian operates under the belief that if he stalls and diverts attention long enough, it will become too much trouble for his victims to pursue him. By taking just $25,000, it becomes too expensive to recover the loss in civil action, and is not quite enough to become a priority target for most criminal investigation.  There is now a significant number or people he has defrauded. Evidence shows that Ian has been running this scheme for several years and has grown quite proficient at avoiding prosecution.  It is estimated that he has 50-100 funding projects in progress at this time.  Ian has bragged of having more than 100.

Flight Risk:  A licensed private pilot, Ian Adlington makes frequent trips to Mexico, Cayman Islands and Bahamas where he does banking.  He is taking a intensive course in Spanish and has talked about plans of buying a house in Argentina or South America.  He travels under British passport.  According to sources close to Ian, his US Visa expired on September 28, 2012. A securities fraud investigation has commenced with Bahamas securities commission as the result of fraudulently misrepresenting status as fund manager for a Bahamas registered equity fund. Over the course of the 16 months we dealt with Ian's daily and weekly promises of funding, we lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  We are now aligned with several other people who have been defrauded by Ian and are pursuing criminal and civil actions