Take AIM, fire! The former armed robber unmasked as oil firm's boss

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A bank robber, a pizza restaurant owner, and a man who almost accidentally bought an oil company in his 76-year-old mum’s name.

These three larger-than-life characters would sit comfortably in a Roald Dahl novel when in fact they make up the colourful and complicated back story of the AIM-listed, US-focused and British Virgin Islands-incorporated oil explorer Sefton Resources.

Several years ago, Daniel Levi and Tom Winnifrith, two vitriolic bloggers well-known in small-cap circles, made allegations against Sefton’s former boss Jim Ellerton, claiming the company’s financials were “misleading”.

Legal action was launched by Sefton in February 2013, with the pair accused of libel.

Several months later, Mr Levi, who calls himself Brokerman Dan, and Mr Winnifrith, the self-titled Sheriff of AIM and outspoken owner of the Free Speech & Liberty Pizza House in London, emerged victorious and Sefton agreed to pay them undisclosed sums.

Mr Ellerton, meanwhile, stepped down from his post that summer. This February, Mr Levi was parachuted in as interim executive chairman at the oil minnow, just as the multimillionaire investor Jim Mellon snapped up some shares.

That got the attention of the hordes of small private investors who like to bet on penny stocks on AIM, who began piling into the shares again.

Mr Levi, who was working to sell the company’s wells in Kansas – where production had peaked at just 11 barrels of oil a day – masterminded a £900,000 fundraising through a placing of shares to fund Sefton’s turnaround.

He took a nominal £1 fee for three months’ work but was also granted options over 65 million shares, which were worth more than £70,000 at the time.

He drafted in Clem Chambers, chief executive of the online trading site ADVFN, as a director and enlisted the services of Raylene Whitford as chief financial officer.

The share price performance suggested that investors thought Mr Levi’s attempted turnaround operation was finally working after years of pain in which Sefton’s value had tumbled to below £4m.

Enter Chris Williams, another investor and blogger better known to the investment community as “Chris Oil” and now notorious for almost accidentally buying the AIM-listed New World Oil & Gas on behalf of his mum, who runs a bed and breakfast near Malvern in Worcestershire.

When Chris Oil invests, there are plenty of small AIM punters who will follow – and so the share price increased before Sefton rushed into another dilutive fundraising to bring in £800,000.

In April, Mr Levi, who had shut down the company’s Colorado base and moved its HQ to a rented space in London, outlined plans to change Sefton’s name to Stryker Petroleum, in an attempt to draw a line under its past – after which he stepped down from the board.

A line at the bottom of a press release revealed he had not disclosed his former name – David John Hopkins.

It emerged this week that Mr Levi had good reason to conceal his past life: it included a conviction for armed bank robbery and 16 years in jail.

In his blog, Mr Levi now admits that he was also arrested in an armed siege “where 38 firearms including sub-machine guns, pump- action shotguns, assault rifles, hand guns et al, and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, were recovered”.

He boasts of being number five on the UK National Crime Squad’s “most wanted” list, adding that he has been “shot at, stabbed and kidnapped”.

The shocking revelations prompted Sefton to distance itself from Mr Levi, claiming that he failed to disclose both his criminal record and his name change.

If that is the case, Mr Levi may have broken the law. An investigation is expected.

Tom Everett-Heath, a managing director at the corporate investigations firm Kroll, said that while there is an obligation to disclose information, companies must also conduct “thorough and risk-weighted due diligence”.

He added: “They should really think of this as being an exercise in commonsensical good corporate governance – and to not do so exposes them to meaningful financial and reputational risks further down the line.

“The costs of solving those risks are considerably greater than the cost of doing good due diligence in the first place,” he added.

Allenby Capital has remained as the company’s nominated adviser, or “nomad”, throughout all these allegations, the failed legal action, a change in management, endless chopping and changing in the boardroom and a complete lack of operational progress.

As nomad, it was Allenby’s job to decide whether Sefton’s directors were fit for its board. The Independent contacted Allenby, but the broker said it would not discuss the details of individual clients.

Since Mr Levi left, Sefton has entered into a joint venture in Indonesia, sold the Kansas assets for $400,000 (£250,000) and is fighting a lawsuit from former boss Mr Ellerton, who is trying to force the firm to declare itself bankrupt.

Mr Williams was accused in May of encouraging investors on Twitter to buy the shares, a matter of minutes before selling his entire holding.

He has since teamed up with Mr Levi and together the pair now hold more than 10 per cent of the shares, which under British Virgin Islands rules means they can force action should they wish.

Mr Williams has strongly hinted that he and Mr Levi will move to take control should things not move quickly enough at Sefton.

“We’ve got a team already lined up to go in if that is the case,” Mr Williams told The Independent.

One AIM punter, who asked to remain anonymous, suggested that the double-act of Messrs Levi and Williams has “a lot to prove, reputations to restore and action to take to restore investors’ faith in their integrity”.

“Let’s hope they support the current Sefton team by holding their stock and letting the professionals get on with their objective to deliver value for us long-suffering shareholders,” he added.