Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.
A Stoke-on-Trent law firm named by The Mail on Sunday for its role in an investment scam that cost a pensioner his life savings of half a million pounds has been forcibly shut down by legal watchdogs and its boss has been banned from practising law.
We reported in May that an 81-year-old reader had been offered safe investments in loan bonds issued by household-name firms including Tesco, National Grid and Metro Bank.
The offer appeared to come from Capital Group, and the Financial Conduct Authority’s public register lists a genuine London firm of this name.
In documents sent to the pensioner, Capital Group told him the bonds would yield annual interest of 6 per cent or more, adding that these returns ‘will far outweigh the 4.99 per cent deposit you have with Kent Reliance, and payments can be made monthly as well’. And they assured him: ‘With a track record spanning nearly a century, we have successfully aided clients in meeting their investment and retirement goals.’
After going ahead with the investment but receiving neither bonds nor interest, the investor realised he had been cheated and asked for help. It quickly became clear the offer actually came from crooks who had cloned the real Capital Group’s business details.
Banned: Former solicitor Ajaz Ali refused to say what had happened to the scam victim’s cash
Going through paperwork handed over by the investor, my first check was into the crooks’ email address at capitalgroup-am.com. I found this had been set up as recently as September 2024 to impersonate the genuine company’s website at capitalgroup.com. I contacted the genuine Capital Group, which did not seem surprised and appeared to know its name was being misused. It told me: ‘We are vigilant in working to take down fraudulent websites quickly and do everything we can to help authorities identify these bad actors.’
The Financial Conduct Authority published an alert on its website, warning against the clone, but this came too late to help as the half a million pounds invested had already vanished.
And this is the oddest aspect of the scam. For the pensioner had been reassured by the fact that he was not asked to send his money to a foreign country, or even to a foreign bank. The crooks instructed him to send payment for the bonds to Barclays bank at Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, to be credited to the account of Kenneth Jones Solicitors, based a couple of miles away in Stoke-on-Trent. What could be safer?
I have a copy of the internal bank transfer documents, showing that the pensioner’s own bank – Lloyds – did send the cash. It scrupulously checked who was behind the Barclays account, and confirmed that it really was Kenneth Jones Solicitors.
My checks on the law firm showed nothing unusual. It was set up in 2013, with its head office in Stoke-on-Trent and a branch in Wolverhampton. Kenneth Jones himself retired in 2014, but the name of the firm was unchanged.
It was headed by Ajaz Ali, now 48, who qualified as a solicitor in 2010. And the firm advertised that it handled conveyancing, compensation claims, wills, trusts, family law and immigration cases. There was nothing unusual about it, and it had a clean record with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
But when the scam victim called the firm to ask what it had done with his money, he was told that Ali would call him back. He didn’t. And when the victim called again, whoever answered his call hung up when they heard his name. I put my own questions to Ali, pressing him to say what he had done with the missing money. He refused to answer.
I also contacted the SRA, inviting it to check and see if Ali had carried out the normal checks to identify his client, who would receive the huge sum that had landed in the Kenneth Jones account. It turned out the SRA was already familiar with Ali’s firm. It was seriously concerned over the disappearance of the £500,000 – but it was also investigating a separate complaint that ended with a disciplinary hearing in July.
This involved the sale of a Bedfordshire pensioner’s home for a fifth of its true value. The deal was supposed to allow him to remain in the property for the rest of his life, but actions by the buyer ended with the local authority having to rescue him and move him to emergency accommodation. Ali had mishandled the property sale and was fined £40,000 plus £28,000 costs for reckless misconduct.
Meanwhile, another investor came forward to say he had also fallen victim to a scam. He had parted with a six-figure sum that also disappeared into the bank account of Ali’s firm.
After carrying out its own investigation, the SRA has now closed down Kenneth Jones Solicitors. A few days ago, its offices stood empty and locked.
The SRA said: ‘There is reason to suspect dishonesty on the part of Mr Ali, as a manager of the firm, in connection with the firm’s business. We have prohibited this person from practising as a solicitor.’
Ali could not be contacted for comment. He remains a director and one-third owner of MLA Homes Limited, a property company based in Birmingham.
However, he has updated his internet Linkedin page. It still describes him as ‘Skilled in conveyancing, immigration law, family, litigation and wills and probate. A strong professional with the client’s best interest always at heart’, but Ali now gives his occupation as ‘Former Solicitor’.
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
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