The Times on the money yet again with startling expose of Winnifrith's long-time associate BrokermanDaniel

This extraordinary story contains information which appears to contradict our own investigation (see above tab) of the background of  'Daniel Levi'. One explanation is that our investigators simply got it wrong when they found that his real name is James Moloney. The alternative is that, in his attempts to hide his background, he has over the years changed his name more than once. 

The armed robber who rode into the Wild West

 Ben Turney and Marcus Leroux 27 July 2015

A name change concealed the identity of a company executive

It was the sort of small print that few take notice of. The last line of a stock market announcement by an oil explorer called Sefton Resources revealed that Daniel Levi, who was standing down as executive chairman, had previously been known as David John Hopkins.

Daniel Levi, aka David Hopkins, has convictions for armed robbery and his part in a siege involving two escaped criminals at a cottage in Derbyshire and admits that he was “a very naughty boy” — something that raises fresh questions about oversight and standards on the Alternative Investment Market in London

Levi had breached the rules of AIM, the stock exchange’s junior sibling, by not disclosing his previous name. A Times investigation has uncovered the reason for his reticence.

Levi, as Hopkins, was a convicted armed robber with a reputation for violence and for having links to Britain’s criminal underworld. Most recently, he served a prison sentence for his part in an armed siege led by two escaped criminals. Separately, he spent most of his 20s in prison for armed robbery.

Disclosure by The Times of Levi’s criminal past poses further questions over the regulation of AIM, after criticism that it has standards of governance more akin to the Wild West than a modern bourse. As well as breaching AIM rules by not informing shareholders of his previous name, he also broke the rules by failing to disclose an unspent conviction.

Levi admitted to having been a “hardened career criminal” on his personal website this weekend, the day after The Times put questions to him over his criminal background

He wrote: “I served 16 years in maximum security prisons, a lot of it as a category A prisoner, being escorted by three officers and a dog handler on a daily basis. From HMP Frankland, Durham, to HMP Parkhurst, on the Isle of Wight. There isn’t a maximum security prison that I have not been incarcerated in.”

He added: “I was viewed by Special Branch, in particular, as a dangerous, violent, criminal involved in organised crime. Looking back I cannot disagree with their opinion. I was a very naughty boy.”

Levi had already served ten years for an armed robbery when he was convicted for his part in a siege near Glossop in Derbyshire. Police had tracked down two escaped robbers, Philip Riley and Anthony Wilson, to a farmhouse on a narrow country lane.

The pair, who had attacked and tied up a workshop instructor at a prison in Hertfordshire, were refusing to give themselves up. Wilson emerged under police spotlight after a day.

Riley followed a day later when his lawyer Nick Freeman, who went on to become known as Mr Loophole for his success in getting celebrities off the hook for traffic offences, was brought to the house in an armoured car to negotiate with the robber. When Riley was finally coaxed from the house with his hands above his head, police recovered 38 weapons, including machineguns.

Levi was convicted alongside Riley at Manchester Crown Court. It was not his last brush with the law.

He was arrested in 2002 after he obtained a confidential police list that revealed him as No 5 on a list of police targets, despite his claims that he had abandoned crime. He protested at the time that he had gone straight and was released without charge.

By 2010, having changed his name from David Hopkins to Daniel Levi, he had reinvented himself as a share tipster on internet bulletin boards, where private investors share gossip and rumours about volatile penny stocks. Posting using the moniker Brokermandaniel, he gained a following and set up his own website, GuerillaInvesting.co.uk.

Two years ago he helped to bring about the downfall of a previous executive chairman of Sefton by helping to prove that executive had used the company’s resources to repay a personal debt. This year he emerged from the sidelines to table a rescue bid for Sefton, with the backing of Jim Mellon, an investor whose most famous coup was co-founding UraMin, a uranium mining group that was sold for $2.5 billion to the French state-owned nuclear company.

With Mr Mellon’s backing, he organised a rights issue and in January became executive chairman of Sefton.

Mr Mellon yesterday played down his involvement with Levi: “Dan Levi and I have only shaken hands once and my investment in Sefton is a bagatelle. I don’t even know what it does.”

The Times understands that Levi’s name change emerged when an injudicious Twitter posting by Levi prompted the London Stock Exchange to ask the company’s nominated adviser what due diligence it had conducted.

Levi had prematurely tweeted potentially market-moving information. When Allenby Capital, the nominated adviser whose job it is to keep the company honest, revisited the due diligence, its investigator uncovered the name change.

Sefton and its nomad are not thought to have been aware of Levi’s criminal past until alerted by The Times.

The saga will do no favours to the reputation of AIM, once likened to the Wild West by a former boss of the Nasdaq exchange. Before the crash, a policymaker from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the American regulator, called it a casino. Other critics have hit out, saying that the market was too inclined to allow cash shells to list.

There has been no shortage of controversies. Quindell, once one of the largest companies on AIM, is under investigation by regulators over its accounting practices. Nor is Levi the only figure on AIM with a colourful past. Frank Timis, an entrepreneur in oil, gas and mining, has two convictions for possession of heroin with intent to supply. He has been deemed as “unsuitable” to be a director by the Toronto Stock Exchange, but has had a string of ventures on AIM in recent years.