Hazen Moussami

Sydneyger65

Sydneyger65

Well-Known Member
THE Middle Eastern money man behind a mysterious Rangers investment has broken cover to insist he has no links to the criminal underworld.

Mazen Houssami, a lawyer based in Beirut, Lebanon, spoke exclusively to the Record after a series of explosive courtroom revelations made by the club’s chairman Dave King in Edinburgh last week.

King took to the witness stand to drop the bombshell that four unnamed investors “linked to organised crime and money laundering” had bought into Rangers, as well as an American firm allegedly involved in “criminality”.

Now Houssami has spoken out to deny that any of those links can be traced back to Blue Pitch Holdings, the company he set up in 2012 to help fund Charles Green’s ill-fated £5.5million Ibrox buyout.

Blue Pitch retain a holding of four million shares in the Glasgow club. But they had their voting rights frozen by King three years ago over concerns about who else might be behind the money.

Houssami, though, insists he is in sole control of those shares.

He said: “I am the only shareholder of Blue Pitch – I am the only director – and it has been the case since day one. So there is nothing grey or even close to grey about Blue Pitch.

“I hope he’s not talking about Blue Pitch… This is a very serious allegation that has been made and, speaking as a lawyer, if this allegation is directed at Blue Pitch, then there will be consequences for that.

“But I can honestly tell you, I don’t think he was talking about Blue Pitch.”

The Record understands King’s regime have serious concerns about a lack of transparency over a number of shadowy shareholders with potential links to organised crime in New York and Italy.

As part of his ongoing dispute with the Takeover Panel, King told the Court of Session the club were aware of four shareholders who are the subjects of anti-money laundering legislation.

The identities of the four were not disclosed in court, nor how long they’d held their shares.

But King insisted he cannot lawfully buy them out despite being ordered to make a £19million bid for all the club’s remaining shares.

Houssami bought his way into Ibrox in 2012, when Green needed financial backers to fund his purchase of the club’s assets from administrators Duff & Phelps.

It is widely believed all of Green’s initial investors were rewarded with heavily discounted shares when the club were floated on the stock exchange later that year – with many helping themselves to shares costing just 1p.

Houssami, however, insists he paid more than the 20p which King has now been forced to offer by the authorities.

He claims to have answered the club’s demands for full transparency but has declined to say if he intends to cash in on his holding – which would land King with an £800,000 bill.

That will rise further if fellow shareholders who Houssami describes as his “friends” should also decide to take King’s deal.

He said: “That will be assessed when we have the offer. Until now there has been no offer.

“If there is an offer of 20p, then that would be much less than we paid but, anyway, this is not about a business deal. All we are thinking about is how to keep supporting the team.

“I don’t think what is happening now is being very helpful to the team.”

Houssami added: “If those allegations were made in a courtroom to try to make some kind of low offer to buy everybody out, it will not work.

“It may then become a matter of going through the procedures in order to regain our voting rights, which is something that is easily done. But let’s just wait and look at the offer when it gets to us.

“We don’t want to be there if we are not wanted there. If the team are healthy and they don’t need the shareholders any more, then we are happy to leave – but for the right amount.

“This could be part of a plan to buy everyone out at a low price but Blue Pitch are not offering our shares to sell.

“Of course, we have a lot of friends who are also shareholders and whenever we decide what we are doing it is a joint decision. So I still don’t know what we are going to do about this. It’s too early to decide.”

A spokesman for King and Rangers said they had no comment to make on the claims made by Houssami.




 
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Ok. Dave will make you an offer you can't refuse then....

giphy.webp
 
Amazing all this hard work the the rhecord is capable of when it’s s negative story. So much effort in its reporting.

Maybe, just maybe if they had put in as much effort regarding Craig fn Whyte instead of calling him a self made billionaire without a shred of fn proof, we wouldn’t have been put in the situation we found ourselves in
 
EVENTUALLY they began referring to it in blanket terms as the banter years.

Exhausted by years of emotional distress and turmoil the Rangers supporters realised if they couldn’t laugh about the absurdities going on in the name of their own club then there could be only one other option.

They were, after all, living through a farce of unprecedented proportions – a series of chaotic scenarios all unleashed upon them by a cast of characters, each one seemingly more ludicrous and impossible to believe than the next.

Gallows humour had become a comforting last resort.

But behind this thick haze of confusion things were being done to their club which were not in the slightest bit amusing. Millions upon millions of pounds were coming and going out the front doors of Ibrox in what looked for all the world like an organised – if barely legal – heist.

Constant tales too of mobile phones being hacked or tampered with and of movements being closely monitored, all amid a lingering stench of intimidation and corruption.

Synonymous with all of this became certain names, companies and individuals, all of them operating in the shadows, keeping careful distance from the spotlight of this pantomime’s headline acts and the public soap opera of betrayals and back-stabbings in the boardroom.

But omnipresent nonetheless.

Mysterious entities such as Margarita Trust and Blue Pitch Holdings for example – two of the original financial backers who helped to fund Charles Green’s initial £5.5million purchase of the club’s assets after Craig Whyte had driven it into the hands of the liquidators – became part of the lexicon.

So just last week, when chairman Dave King told a court his regime has uncovered possible underworld links to a number of the club’s existing shareholders, it was nearly enough to wipe the smile off the face of a Rangers fanbase which has been finally enjoying football again thanks to the impressive work of Steven Gerrard.

They may be equally surprised to learn today the Middle Eastern money man behind Blue Pitch is now talking about visiting Ibrox for the first time, six years after first becoming such a central part of the narrative.

But Beirut-based lawyer Mazen Houssami is adamant he has nothing to hide. In fact in an exclusive interview with Record Sport he claims to have been one of this story’s many victims.

“I mean, I didn’t buy the team because I wanted to make a business deal out of it,” he insists, if sounding a little bit unconvincing from all 3500 miles away.

“I just love football and I love Rangers. That’s why I’m happy today that we are playing very well as this is the most important thing.”

You’d be excused for thinking that sounds all a little too much like Lebanese for Rangersitis, the hoary old condition which first brought Green to town back in that hectic summer of 2012. A healthy dose of cynicism helps to stop the spread. But Houssami is not so detached from the realities of the legacy of suspicion left behind by Whyte, Green, Imran Ahmad et al.

Blue Pitch still own four million shares but are one of four different stakeholders to have had a freeze placed on voting rights for failing to comply with the club’s requests for transparency.

The others are Putney Holdings Limited, Norne Anstalt and ATP Investments Limited (thought to be a rebranded, less toxic version of Margarita).

Houssami remains adamant he is the sole owner of Blue Pitch. That he is not a front man for others who might not be so keen to let their identities be known.

“There are no guys from Blue Pitch, Blue Pitch is one person. Only me,” he says quite sternly.

He also angrily refutes any suggestion of links to organised crime while painting the impression of a man who has been caught up in someone else’s sting.

Houssami goes on: “I understand there will be suspicion in Scotland because of the storm that was caused by Charles Green. But to be frank, many of our rights were simply not respected by Charles Green and Imran Ahmad.

“We decided back then not to file a law suit because we didn’t want to add to that storm. We just waited for the whole investigation into Green, Ahmad and everybody else and said nothing.” Which would all be very good was the name of Blue Pitch not still marked down on King’s list of the not-to-be-trusted.

And Houssami accepts that, when King blew the whistle last week, he was almost certainly pointing a finger in the direction of the 10 per cent of shareholders who are still denied voting rights.

He says: “Yes, he is probably speaking about investors from within this group and I don’t personally know which shareholders specifically had their voting rights frozen.

“There was Blue Pitch and Margarita but we were not the only two shareholders in that group.

“I don’t know who they all are and I can’t talk on their behalf. Maybe some of them are very good people and maybe some of them are linked to some criminal activity. I don’t know.

“But I do remember when we bought our shares we had to be screened and scanned by the banking institutions before we could place our subscription.”

Houssami may be given the chance to cash in on his holding now King has grudgingly agreed to comply with the Takeover Panel’s demands he makes an offer for all remaining shares. But he’s giving little away.

He goes on: “I didn’t get any offers so there’s been no decision to make. I doubt anybody will get an offer so this is why I say it’s too early to talk about it.

“There was a specific time when I was ready to buy a bigger shareholding in the team. But many of the shareholders were reluctant to sell and I understand that because we all love the team.”

There goes that rampant Rangersitis again. But Houssami – this lawyer in some office block in Beirut – can’t be relieved of it by Scottish cynicism alone.

On the contrary he goes on: “I do watch the matches. I’m telling you, I’m emotionally connected to this team, not professionally. It’s not a business deal for me.

“Football is the most important part and I am really pleased with the work Stevie Gerrard has been doing. I don’t know if the success the team is now having will be reflected in the value of the shares. I just hope one day, very soon, I will be watching the team live in Glasgow.”

The thought occurs that Blue Pitch might not be afforded the warmest of welcomes. That perhaps Beirut may be a better option.

But an indignant Houssami says: “Well, I know I share with the fans of the club the same emotions.

So I don’t see why I would not be made welcome.”
 
It’s an absolute fukin disgrace that they were ever allowed in as part of any takeover of rangers. Scottish football again living up to it’s laughable image. We got fuked over and over again by the governing bodies during that period.
 
I thought nobody knew who Blue Pitch holdings were?

Now the Retard has an interview with the main protagonist???

I smell shite
 
‘Rangersitis’

The cringe of it all encapsulated in one Charlie Chuckles soundbite- fk me what time to be alive 2012-15 was eh?
 
He says he is the sole owner of Blue Pitch but makes the following statement among others where he jumps between saying I and we when referring to Blue Pitch.

“But I do remember when we bought our shares we had to be screened and scanned by the banking institutions before we could place our subscription.”
 
Captain_Buns said:
I thought nobody knew who Blue Pitch holdings were?

Now the Retard has an interview with the main protagonist???

I smell shite
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It’s a bit of a strange one. This guy was actually named by Charles Green as a prominent investor as far back as May 2012, the Record named him as the man behind Blue Pitch back in 2014 and the now deceased, creepy weirdo, Paul McConville wrote an article about him in 2013.
 
Smell a rat he’s just looking to cash in on his shares now, he’s got no emotional attachment to the club just being deceitful calling our bluff.
 
You don’t need to dig too hard into other people he has represented to understand why people come to the opinion that he is likely to be the representative of a wealthy Emirates-based Pakistani family well-known for Charity work in the UK and the Gulf amongst whose friends are several of the British Royal Family.
 
A Beirut lawyer as a major shareholder.

FFS

I truly hate those spiv bastards :(
 
Amazing what the retard can dig up when they want to,now what about an in depth investigation into how it all came about in the first instance,oh and the small matter of decades of child abuse across the city............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ah the sound of silence because it doesn't relate to belittling Rangers.
 
Superrangers said:
But why even break cover? Just take the cash when offered. All very odd.
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I think he is concerned that King may get away with NOT offering him 20p for his 1p shares. I suspect this is why King raised this in court with the authorities.

He’s trying to rebutt King’s argument that he can’t make them an offer because they are dodgy and force King to make them the offer, which they will accept if that offer is made.

After all, a 2000% return on your penny shares in 5 years or so is a pretty decent days work
 
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Nothing good comes out of dealing with people like this " trust me I'm Lebanese I just like the Rangers" aye right you are then %^*& off we've been done before with shite like this . He's a wrong un IMHO.
 
Moussami is a lawyer and knows that, if the suspension of the Blue Pitch shares is unfair, he can raise it in the Scottish courts, appear and give evidence accordingly. So far, he has chosen not to do that. I guess he must have his reasons.

It is not really a surprise that this has raised its head again. We are getting to the closing stages in the board's fight to clear out the last remnants of the old regime. Ashley is out as a shareholder. The Easdales and proxies have been diluted heavily and the next share issue, during 2019 sometime, will reduce their holdings even further. King has got allies on the board and as shareholders with no really big stakes as he promised. Ashley and King are nearing the end game on the commercial side. The suspended shares are one of the few remaining legacy issues to be dealt with. King raised it in the court for a reason. He didn't have to because it wasn't actually relevant to that particular hearing. He could have raised it with the TOP in his coming negotiations with them. We shall see.
 
mdingwall said:
You don’t need to dig too hard into other people he has represented to understand why people come to the opinion that he is likely to be the representative of a wealthy Emirates-based Pakistani family well-known for Charity work in the UK and the Gulf amongst whose friends are several of the British Royal Family.
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Naqvi?
 
Haining84 said:
Naqvi?
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From the Daily Rebel back in 2012:

A DUBAI-based businessman last night emerged as the largest single shareholder in Rangers.

Arif Naqvi, chief executive of private equity firm Abraaj Capital, owns just under 18 per cent of Rangers after investing £2million into the club in June.

He is also the force behind Blue Pitch Holdings, listed as the main shareholder in Charles Green’s consortium and reported to hold 23 per cent of shares. It’s understood Naqvi has a personal holding in the club.

It’s believed Gers boss Ally McCoist owns around 4.5 per cent and Green is next week expected to confirm a £1m investment from Newcastle owner Mike Ashley to secure a nine per cent stake.

Other investors include Imran Ahmad and Richard Hughes of Zeus Capital with 9.8 per cent
 
If you're not guilty and have absolutely no links to criminality then why speak out? If i was whiter than white i'd be sitting comfortably in my chair and saying flat %^*& all.
 
It would be nice to think he has the club’s interests at heart but no, cannot swallow that I’m afraid.
This type of large shareholder raises concerns for the future and what they might try to do if an opportunity arises for them to purchase more shares. Keep them marginalised Mr King until they decide it’s time to sell up.
 
Wade Wilson said:
Amazing all this hard work the the rhecord is capable of when it’s s negative story. So much effort in its reporting.

Maybe, just maybe if they had put in as much effort regarding Craig fn Whyte instead of calling him a self made billionaire without a shred of fn proof, we wouldn’t have been put in the situation we found ourselves in
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Aye but corned beef race said ‘wealth off the radar”.:rolleyes:
 
https://www.ft.com/content/0da81a0c-1e3a-11e8-956a-43db76e69936

UK brokerage charged with stock manipulation after FBI sting
Beaufort is charged with orchestrating securities fraud and money laundering schemes
March 2, 2018
The US Department of Justice building in Washington DC © AFP
The US Department of Justice has charged UK broker Beaufort Securities and several of its staff with orchestrating securities fraud and money laundering schemes totalling $50m, following a sting led by an undercover FBI agent.

The DoJ has charged the broker and one of its investment managers, Peter Kyriacou, with manipulating trading in small-cap US stocks using so-called “pump-and-dump schemes”, which brought in more than $50m for clients.

Beaufort facilitated 10 such schemes between 2014 and 2018, the DoJ said. Mr Kyriacou and several others also offered to launder £6.7m which they believed to be the proceeds of securities fraud for the undercover agent, using the purchase and sale of art — including a Pablo Picasso painting.

In total, the DoJ indicted six people and four corporate defendants in a scheme that involved a network of brokers spanning the Caribbean, Mauritius, London and Budapest.

“The defendants engaged in an elaborate multiyear scheme to defraud the investing public of millions of dollars through deceit and manipulative stock trading, and then worked to launder the fraudulent proceeds through offshore bank accounts and the art world,” said US attorney Richard Donoghue.

A manager at Beaufort, Arvinsingh Canaye, was arrested in New York on Thursday, the DoJ said.

During an undercover operation, Mr Kyriacou is alleged to have unwittingly discussed with an FBI agent the manipulation of shares in HD View 360, a provider of security surveillance products, through false promotions and matched trades. He also opened accounts for the agent in the names of offshore companies with nominee shareholders in order to help hide the agent’s identity.

A web of other companies who helped facilitate the fraud and money laundering were named on the indictment as Loyal Bank, an offshore bank with offices in Budapest, Saint Vincent, and Loyal Agency and Trust Corp, an offshore management group located in Saint Vincent.

Separately, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Beaufort and Mr Kyriacou with manipulating trading in HD View 360. The SEC alleged that HD View 360’s chief executive Dennis Mancino and other executives took part in the scheme in exchange for a kickback from the trading proceeds.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, which early on Friday declared Beaufort insolvent, said it is helping the DoJ with its investigation and has launched its own probe.

The insolvency left a number of UK small-cap companies without a broker, with several making announcements seeking an immediate replacement.

Following an urgent application from the FCA, the UK’s High Court has appointed three consultants with PwC as joint administrators for the broker, which had more than 100 staff. According to the administrators, the company had about 14,000 clients, with £37m in client money and £664m in client assets.

Nigel Rackham, joint administrator and PwC director, said that his priority was “to safeguard the firms’ custody and client money holdings held for their clients”.

He added: “Once these positions are under our control and we have secured important trading and client data, we can start planning for the return to clients. However, this is likely to take some time.”

Beaufort could not be contacted for comment, but the broker posted on Twitter confirming it had entered insolvency and ceased trading.
 
Wade Wilson said:
Amazing all this hard work the the rhecord is capable of when it’s s negative story. So much effort in its reporting.

Maybe, just maybe if they had put in as much effort regarding Craig fn Whyte instead of calling him a self made billionaire without a shred of fn proof, we wouldn’t have been put in the situation we found ourselves in
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Trying to go round the back way in an effort to undermine King's "Regine",they really are a state.
 
A
mdingwall said:
You don’t need to dig too hard into other people he has represented to understand why people come to the opinion that he is likely to be the representative of a wealthy Emirates-based Pakistani family well-known for Charity work in the UK and the Gulf amongst whose friends are several of the British Royal Family.
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Abela family?
 
amazing how they are saying if they aren't wanted but they will leave, for the right price. thats good, least they will have their price...

...BUT


have to laugh how they are saying now that they will leave if they aren't wanted...just so happens after you get called out in court!
 
If you/we love rangers then why not offer investment to the board and stop being an inactive cancer on our shareholdingso_O
 
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