Whiskey barrel scandal

By Elevate via Unsplash

By Sean Docherty

Conned victims out of life savings in Scotland 

Cask Whisky LTD has recently been surrounded by a cloud of controversy due to a recent scam involving many different investors. Some investors lost their life savings with some losing over £100,000. 

One of the people affected by this Scam was Jay Evans, an NHS worker who was diagnosed with Terminal Cancer in 2021. Evans invested over £76,000 on seven casks and found out that two of them never existed with the others being overvalued.  

Another person who was affected was Alison Cocks from Montrose. Alison invested over £103,000 and was encouraged to invest more until the company stopped responding when she wanted to sell. She soon found out that one of her casks had been sold to another investor for nearly £50,000. 

The scam was run by Craig Arch who was later identified to really be Craig Brooks who had previously been convicted for fraud. Brooks had been jailed in the past for a £6.2 Million fraud involving carbon credits and earth metals. He also ran another whisky scam named Casks Spirits Global LTD. 

The whisky cask investment market has gained a lot of attention and interest in the past few years which has made investors want to buy casks. However, the lack of regulation within the industry has caused a rise in scams involving investors. Whisky Cask broker Martin Armstrong who stores over 48,000 casks spoke out about the scams. “I never thought the scams could be this widespread.” 

The rise in number of scams has now put investors on high alert when it comes to new investments.   

Hundreds of people have become victims of this scam further contributing to the rising number of those effected by scams. In 2024 there was an estimated 51-81 billion pounds lost in scams across the UK.