{"id":1178,"date":"2014-01-27T14:54:31","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T13:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2014-05-05T19:06:02","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T18:06:02","slug":"mystery-as-birmingham-poker-ace-at-centre-of-police-probe-vanishes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/mystery-as-birmingham-poker-ace-at-centre-of-police-probe-vanishes\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery as Birmingham poker ace at centre of police probe vanishes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

A Birmingham poker ace, who ranks royal love rat James Hewitt and Sir Mark Thatcher among friends, has vanished from his luxury Costa del Sol home amid a major cash probe.<\/p>\n

Broker \u201cSir\u201d Nigel Goldman \u2013 he boasts of paying for the peerage \u2013 is being sought by Spanish police probing claims that people who entrusted him to invest their cash were left empty-handed and unable to access their funds.<\/p>\n

It is not the first time that the playboy, who lived in exclusive\u00a0Petersham Place, Edgbaston,<\/a>\u00a0before moving to Marbella, has been accused of dealing clients a duff hand.<\/p>\n

In his own book, titled \u2018High Stakes: How I blew \u00a314 million\u2019\u00a0he confesses to being banged up twice for fraud.<\/a><\/p>\n

One review of the autobiography notes: \u201cGoldman seems to show little remorse \u2013 and more than a little contempt \u2013 for the victims whose money he lived off so handsomely.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, however, Goldman claims he has been duped himself, along with those who are demanding answers.<\/p>\n

In a text message, he insisted: \u201cThings started to go wrong just over a year ago. It seems some of my brokers turned out to be running a Ponzi scheme with everyone\u2019s money. Since then I have been playing catch-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not set out to be a thief.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from existing capital or new capital paid by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organisation running the operation.<\/p>\n

Goldman has admitted in writing to owing as much as \u20ac800,000 (\u00a3658,000)<\/p>\n

One former Birmingham business contact of the gambler, who dealt in gold and coins, said he was not surprised by the fresh controversy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can\u2019t help himself,\u201d shrugged the coins specialist. \u201cHe\u2019s a very clever bloke. If he did the right things, he\u2019d make a fortune.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldman, a feature at the world\u2019s biggest poker tournaments, has not been seen for three weeks following complaints about his Tangier-based company, International Financial Investment.<\/p>\n

A lawyer acting for investors who say they have lost cash, has publicly stated that he is chasing \u00a32.5 million, and that the sum is rising daily.<\/p>\n

Antonio Flores<\/strong>, of Lawbird<\/strong> solicitors, has placed advertisements in Spanish newspapers in an attempt to track down public school-educated Goldman, nicknamed \u201cNaughty Nigel\u201d by the Costa press.<\/p>\n

Yet Goldman, son of a Birmingham dentist, seemed to have turned over a new leaf after immersing himself in Marbella\u2019s bustling social circuit just over ten years ago. His gleaming Mercedes and glamorous girlfriend, Suzanne Couling, were part and parcel of the VIP scene and were regularly spotted at Hewitt\u2019s Polo House restaurant \u2013 THE place to be in Marbella,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Playboy pal of royal love rat James Hewitt and Sir Mark Thatcher left Costa del Sol home and claims to be victim of scam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[58,59,157],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawbird-in-the-media","tag-antonio-flores","tag-lawbird","tag-nigel-goldman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions\/1182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}