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Oil firm linked to DUP dark money man collapses owing investors £4.5m

Richard Cook signed an oil deal with a Texan company run by a convicted fraudster. The Scottish company involved has gone bust, owing creditors more than £4.5 million

By Peter Geoghegan and Andrew Learmonth
Oil firm linked to DUP dark money man collapses owing investors £4.5m
David Cameron and Richard Cook | http://voterichardcook.blogspot.com
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A Scottish oil and gas company linked to the man behind the Democratic Unionist Party’s mysterious £435,000 Brexit donation owes at least £4.5 million to more than fifty investors, openDemocracy has learned.

Glasgow-based businessman Richard Cook signed a deed of trust between the Scottish company, HGEC Capital Ltd, and a Texas oil firm run by a man described by a judge almost a decade earlier as “a repeat offender with criminal convictions for securities fraud”.

HGEC Capital Ltd went into administration earlier this year. Documents produced by the administrators now reveal that the company owes at least £4.5 million.

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