Danny Brewster, ex-CEO of Neo & Bee, a Cyprus based Bitcoin company, who is accused of fraud against customers, has shown up in public trying to clear his reputation a few months before a court case settlement.
“I've made a lot of mistakes. I would rather not give a brief overview of what has happened, but it's not what has been written about it,“ he stated during the StakePool Teamspeak talk. It was his first public appearance since being accused by Cyprus authorities and running out of the country in 2013. "A lot had been written about me moving to and living in a luxury apartment in Nicosia two months before everything collapsed. I had actually lived in a much bigger and nicer house before Neo & Bee was even seeded, but that doesn't make headlines."
He says the claims of him disappearing with money are absolutely wrong. "People seem to make the assumption that I run off with some 9 000 bitcoins. There were months of development, branch opening, designing, marketing, so to say I just disappeared with everything is illogical. Where did the coins go? Well, to builders, designers, marketing, development and everything like that.”
He stated he was in the UK trying to sort that out and to recapitalize business after losses at Mt.Gox. "There was somebody driving people to complain that I disappeared and that was what drove them to go to the police and to raise the initial warrant. I said to the police right away I can clear this up, the coins are still in Cyprus in the paper wallet held in a safe, so I sent one of my close friends over there, he got the papers for me. They all get their coins and nobody lost anymore coins."
Waiting for the court
According to him Neo-Bee initially raised about 9000 BTC but a big chunk of that was sold when the Silk Road got busted. “As the price was plummeting, nobody knew which way it is gonna go and so a big chunk was sold then. With hindsight I wouldn't just go through that period but nobody knew it's gonna hit much more just a couple of months later." He didn't want to give a figure of how much money there will be after paying off creditors and he will answer that "once I have hard figures of everything settled".
"There's actually been quite a few people who thanked me for the money they had made. So not everybody lost. Even when they feel they lost right now I am working to make sure that they don't feel like that forever. There's nothing more I can do." The case should be settled at the court in March and after that he promised to go into the very fine details of it.
According to two former employees COO George Papageorgiu and risk manager Øystein Aaby, Danny Brewster was solely responsible for raising approximately 9400 bitcoins through crowdfunding on multiple platforms. "Once we assumed our duties, we repeatedly made requests regarding transparency of bitcoins in the company’s possession so that the CFO could perform his duties. The CEO never divulged specific documented information regarding the IPVO bitcoins and amounts. The CFO is unable to account for the majority of bitcoins allegedly expended. Danny Brewster was the sole custodian of funds raised from the IPVO and despite repeated requests from both the CFO and Compliance and Risk Management Officer, he consistently deflected and delayed any attempts to have the coins witnessed or accounted for," they stated in the reddit announcement a year ago.