Lee Bramzell

A summary of what happened?

Lee Bramzell is a British entrepreneur known for his involvement in the property and hotel sectors, notably as a co-founder of the Shepherd Cox group. The group attracted investments for hotel room leases, promising substantial returns. However, the venture faced significant financial difficulties, leading to investor losses and subsequent legal challenges.

Major concerns and accusations against Lee Bramzell include:

• Mismanagement of Funds: Allegations suggest that funds were misappropriated within the Shepherd Cox group, with approximately £10 million unaccounted for.
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• Misleading Investors: Investors claim they were misled about the viability and profitability of hotel investments, with some rooms sold that were never constructed, raising concerns of obtaining money by deception.
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• Preferential Treatment: There are allegations of favorable treatment and high commissions to certain introducers and facilitators within the investment scheme.
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• Non-Disclosure in IVA Proposals: During Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) proceedings, Bramzell was accused of failing to disclose all relevant information, including existing winding-up petitions, which could have influenced creditor decisions.
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• Asset Transfers to Avoid Repayment: It’s alleged that assets were transferred to new entities, such as the Festival Hotels Group, to shield them from creditors, potentially depriving investors of due repayments.
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These issues have led to significant financial losses for investors and ongoing legal scrutiny of Bramzell’s business practices.

Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)

Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.

What was Lee Bramzell trying to hide?

Lee Bramzell‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling Lee Bramzell in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information Lee Bramzell may be trying to remove from the internet –

Investigative Report: A Deep Dive into the Allegations and Legal Troubles of Lee Bramzell

Background and Profile Lee Bramzell, a British entrepreneur, has been a notable figure in the property and hotel investment sectors. Born in June 1975, Bramzell gained recognition as a co-founder of the Shepherd Cox group, a company that promised lucrative returns to investors through hotel room lease investments. Over the years, Bramzell has held at least 85 directorships across multiple ventures, many of which are now under scrutiny.

The story of Lee Bramzell and Shepherd Cox is emblematic of the risks inherent in the investment market. While the promise of high returns lured investors, the reality unfolded as one of financial mismanagement, allegations of fraud, and devastating losses for those involved. This report delves into the extensive allegations, lawsuits, and financial irregularities surrounding Bramzell and his business ventures.

The Shepherd Cox Group: A Promising Facade

Shepherd Cox, co-founded by Lee Bramzell, positioned itself as a leader in the hotel investment sector. Investors were promised fixed returns of up to 10% annually, with the added allure of owning hotel rooms in functioning properties. Shepherd Cox managed an impressive portfolio of hotels, which they claimed were operational and profitable.

However, the collapse of Shepherd Cox revealed systemic issues:

• Nonexistent Rooms: Investigations showed that some rooms sold to investors were never constructed.
• Overinflated Valuations: Properties were allegedly valued at rates far exceeding their market worth, misleading investors about their potential returns.
• Financial Discrepancies: Approximately £10 million was reportedly unaccounted for, raising concerns about financial mismanagement and potential misappropriation.

For many investors, the dream of passive income turned into a nightmare of legal battles and financial loss.

Investor Complaints and Allegations

1. Misrepresentation of Investments: Investors were led to believe their money was being funneled into lucrative and operational hotel properties. However:
   • Several hotels within the Shepherd Cox portfolio were already in financial distress.
   • Investor funds were allegedly diverted to cover debts or pay commissions to introducers rather than being used for hotel operations.
2. Unviable Business Model: Shepherd Cox’s model relied heavily on continued investor inflow. Without new investments, the group struggled to sustain operations, suggesting a business structure teetering on unsustainability.
3. High-Risk Promises: Fixed returns of 10% annually, guaranteed for extended periods, raised red flags among financial experts. Such promises are rarely sustainable without a stable and profitable operational model.

Legal and Financial Fallout

As Shepherd Cox’s financial troubles deepened, investors began taking legal action to recover their funds. Some of the significant legal challenges include:

• Liquidation and Administration: By 2020, Shepherd Cox faced liquidation proceedings. Court-appointed administrators revealed significant financial irregularities and discrepancies in the company’s accounting.
• Fraud Allegations: Investors alleged that the company engaged in deceptive practices, including selling hotel rooms that were never built and issuing misleading financial projections.
• Preferential Treatment: Certain facilitators and introducers within the Shepherd Cox network reportedly received high commissions. These payouts, made at the expense of the broader investor pool, are under investigation for potential conflicts of interest.

The Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) Controversy

In 2021, Lee Bramzell filed for an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), a formal agreement to settle personal debts with creditors. While the IVA was approved, the process was fraught with controversy:

• Non-Disclosure: Bramzell was accused of failing to disclose critical information, including existing winding-up petitions against his business ventures. This omission may have influenced creditor decisions.
• Divided Creditors: While some creditors supported the IVA, others argued that bankruptcy proceedings would be more appropriate to ensure transparency and accountability.

Festival Hotels Group: A New Entity Under Fire

After the downfall of Shepherd Cox, Bramzell became involved with the Festival Hotels Group, which inherited some of the former’s properties. However, this venture also faced financial and legal issues:

• Asset Transfers: Properties under Shepherd Cox were reportedly transferred to Festival Hotels to shield them from creditor claims. Such actions are viewed by many as an attempt to avoid repaying debts owed to investors.
• Receivership: Several Festival Hotels properties, including the renowned Crab and Lobster, were placed into receivership, further eroding investor confidence.

The Investor Perspective

For the hundreds of investors involved, the fallout from Bramzell’s ventures has been catastrophic:

• Many investors, including retirees, saw their life savings wiped out.
• The legal battles have been costly and prolonged, with no clear resolution in sight.
• Allegations of fraudulent activity have caused significant emotional and financial distress among stakeholders.

Public and Media Scrutiny

Bramzell’s business dealings have attracted widespread criticism in the media and from consumer advocacy groups. Websites such as Safe or Scam have extensively documented the grievances of affected investors, labeling the schemes as cautionary tales for those seeking high-yield investments.

Key Questions and Ongoing Investigations

The ongoing investigations into Bramzell’s ventures aim to address several key questions:

1. Were investors deliberately misled about the viability of their investments?
2. How were funds within Shepherd Cox and Festival Hotels managed, and where did the unaccounted £10 million go?
3. Were asset transfers to Festival Hotels designed to defraud creditors?

These investigations will likely shape the future of Bramzell’s business career and offer insights into how regulatory frameworks can better protect investors.

Conclusion

The case of Lee Bramzell and Shepherd Cox serves as a stark reminder of the risks associated with unregulated investments. While the promise of high returns attracted many, the reality has been one of financial ruin and prolonged legal battles. As investigations continue, stakeholders and authorities alike hope to uncover the full extent of the alleged misconduct and hold those responsible accountable.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of Lee Bramzell (or actors working on behalf of Lee Bramzell), we will inform Lee Bramzell of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that Lee Bramzell may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from Lee Bramzell, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to Lee Bramzell to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –

Since Lee Bramzell made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally

We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which Lee Bramzell is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for Lee Bramzell

Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.

Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.

Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.”  Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).

Is Lee Bramzell Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. Lee Bramzell used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. Lee Bramzell could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.

Faced with these limitations, some companies like Lee Bramzell have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. Lee Bramzell is certainly keeping interesting company here….

The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.

Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.

Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi

The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.

Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by Lee Bramzell creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.

The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.

The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.

In committing numerous offences, Lee Bramzell either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about Lee Bramzell, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.

The Reputation Laundering

Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.

The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.

In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.

This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.

Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. Lee Bramzell is in great company ….

What else is Lee Bramzell hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [Lee Bramzell] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)

To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on Lee Bramzell that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].

All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.