Liquidators bid to have Vashi jewellery boss made bankrupt

The jewellery tycoon, alleged to have orchestrated a £170m scam which defrauded a legion of wealthy investors, will be declared bankrupt if a bid by his former company's liquidators is successful.

Sky News has learnt that insolvency practitioners in charge of probing the demise of Vashi, a luxury diamond jeweller which had shops in some of London's most prestigious addresses, have served a statutory demand on its founder, Vashi Dominguez. The demand, which is seeking the repayment of just over £17,500, is expected to be made public later this week, nearly three years after the company collapsed in mysterious circumstances.

Money latest: Anger over David Lloyd 'queue-jump' pass Mr Dominguez, whose whereabouts have been unclear since the business was forced into liquidation, established the bespoke jeweller in 2007, and attracted investment from prominent City names including Lord Spencer, the ICAP founder, and John Caudwell, the Phones 4U billionaire. He told shareholders that the company's stock of diamonds, purportedly worth more than £150m, would act as security for their investments.

Its inventory was subsequently valued at just £100,000. Teneo, which has been in the process of liquidating the company and attempting to secure recoveries for creditors since April 2023, is understood to have served the statutory demand in the expectation that it will lead to a bankruptcy petition against him.

Under the Insolvency Act, a statutory demand acts as a formal warning notice to repay a debt within 21 days, after which a creditor can seek to have the recipient declared bankrupt. Some creditors have been left frustrated by the decisions of the Serious Fraud Office and Metropolitan Police not to investigate both the company's collapse and the alleged actions of its founder.

Last month, The Times reported that the Financial Ombudsman Service had rejected further submissions from investors in relation to Vashi, saying that they had not produced "definitive evidence that a scam had taken place". Teneo declined to comment, while Mr Dominguez could not be contacted by Sky News..