Surge Financial CEO Paul Careless was arrested yesterday and questioned for four and a half hours, the Evening Standard has revealed.
Surge Financial was London Capital & Finance’s marketing agent. Another company in the Surge network, RPDigitalservices, which was controlled by Careless from July 2018 to April 2019, ran the top-isa-rates and best-interest-rates websites which channeled investors to London Capital & Finance using misleading comparisons between FSCS-protected deposit rates and LCF’s high-risk rates.
Around £60 million of LCF investors’ money was paid to Surge, of which £26 million was spent on marketing via Google, Facebook and other channels.
A spokesperson for Careless stated that he had not been charged and was not on bail.
They also stated that Surge “did not handle client money and had no involvement in the deployment of funds to borrowing companies”, thoroughly refuting something that nobody accused them of.
Sources close to Careless claimed that LCF’s administrator Smith & Williamson instigated the arrest to get Careless to hand over documents. S&W strenuously denied having anything to do with the arrest.
Careless becomes the fifth person to be arrested in connection with LCF, following LCF CEO Andy Thomson, LCF founder (and director of one of its largest borrowers) Simon Hume-Kendall, and two others who have so far not been publicly identified.
hopefully many more of these deceitful people will know what it feels like to be under scrutiny must do this a lot more to get records released how dare they hide – shame on all of you I hope your faces are on show in the media