The Cyprus-based Neo
&Bee Company has terminated operation some time
before its CEO Danny Brewster went missing. Some customers accuse him for
fraudulence, but Mr. Brewster names personal reasons behind his hasty disappearance.
Neo &
Bee has won the market with a nasty advertising campaign, offering business
wallets and Bee cards with corresponding terminals and APIs earlier this year. Ambitious
business has been stopped by the end of March, while the flow of transactions was
not even self-sufficient.
However,
the service has re-launched on April 4th at 5:00 PM EST some
questions remain unanswered.
Personal Reasons
Danny
Brewster does not consider his move as fleeing from the country. He believes it
was a reasonable reaction on threats he has received. The temporary absence
will end once the matter will be cleared by the local police.Twitter sources suggest, however, that "Danny doesn't speak Greek and he most likely called either UK embassy or UK police, not the Cyprus police".
Mr.
Brewster explains:
“I left Cyprus on a short-term
temporary basis. I haven't shipped anything from Cyprus and I certainly haven't
run away with company or people's money or Bitcoins.”
He is also
afraid that the blackmailer is not joking, threatening the family of the
businessman:
“I received direct threats targeted
directly at my daughter. They have been reported to the relevant authorities.”
Leaving
the country for a while is one of the methods to avoid potential danger:
“Once those threats were made I took
the advice to remain outside of Cyprus and remove contact with anyone that
could be responsible for the threats. This included not speaking with members
of staff that could be responsible.”
Temporary Conditions
The Neo &Bee Company cannot be called
huge as the staff consists of 11 people. 15 new specialists have been recently
employed to widen the branches and establish a call-center.
Some of
them claim that they have not been paid for March and even invested personal
assets in the development of the company. Most of them have resigned and the
central office has been abandoned.
In
addition local police received to statements from customers, who provided the
company with 20 000 and 15 000 euros respectively, but have not received their
Bitcoins.
On the contrary,
the police office has not registered any complaints from Danny Brewster to
start any investigation of the threats.
Interference of
Havelock Investments
Havelock
Investments also lacks any particular information, but made the decision to
stop trading. According to them the re-launch of the service was possible due
to instructions from Neo & Bee.
While the
financial status of the company remains unknown, Mr. Brewster insisted:
“Every single Bitcoin raised and spent
is accounted for, any claims of embezzlement are nothing but empty claims with
no foundation.”
He has
also mentioned the notorious Japan-based exchanger Mt.Gox:
“UKYO [the operator of BitFunder] also
owes me an additional 260BTC separately from the 1,420BTC. I also have 369.8BTC
of my own Bitcoin stuck with Mt.Gox that would have been given to the company
to settle all creditors and continue operations whilst more capital was raised.
Having funds on Mt. Gox was a personal risk that I assumed and no company funds
were ever held on there.”
However,
the investigation has to be continued to prove a deeper connection between the
present condition of Neo &Bee and Mt.Gox service. Cointelegraph is
going to follow the situation and report on time.