Two trustees have been banned because of a pension scheme with £16m of mainly ‘exotic’ investments that “bore the hallmarks of a scam”.

John Garry Williams (also known as Garry John Williams) and Susan Lynn Huxley have been prohibited from being trustees of pension schemes for failing to be ‘fit or proper’.

The Pensions Regulator cited “a lack of integrity, competence and capability”.

TPR found that the trustees of 5G Futures Pension scheme showed “serious disregard of some obvious risks to members from the scheme’s investments”.

TPR said its concerns included:
• Potential scheme members were cold called and text messaged by introducers, paid on commission by 5G Futures Pension.
• Without their knowledge, member’s funds were invested in exotic sounding, unregulated investments overseas, such as tree plantations in Fiji, Brazilian teak plantation land and fund shares based in the Cayman Islands.
• The scheme appeared to have been a “vehicle for pension liberation and that the trustees were aware of this”.

TPR had already steeped in to appoint independent trustee PI Consulting (Trustee Services) to the 5G Futures Pension scheme, to protect member assets and prevent future transfers into the scheme.

When appointed, over £16 million had been invested, the majority of which was in unregulated investments overseas, and the scheme’s methods “bore the hallmarks of a scam”. The overall value of the investments was significantly lower (at approximately £991,000) than their initial purchase price, TPR stated.

Nicola Parish, TPR executive director of frontline regulation, said: “We will take tough action on rogue trustees and are calling on all pension savers, trustees and administrators to be alert to the techniques they use. Beware of the dangers of transferring out of reputable pension schemes to access unrealistically high returns often associated with exotic sounding investment opportunities. If an offer seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

“Our concerns in this case led to us appointing an independent trustee and we are confident that our actions have saved hundreds of members from entering the scheme.”