The Liverpool-born businessman, known to them only as “Paddy”, had flown from his home in Dubai in late 2023 to Costa Rica, where a team from around the world was running a novel digital investment platform. He was helping to assure investors that the supposedly temporary issues blocking their withdrawals would soon be resolved.
Now, from an eight-bedroom mansion in Escazú, a wealthy suburb of the capital San José, McInnes, 56, appeared to be making his exit. Investors had endured months of agonising delays, but shortly before they had been promised they would finally be paid, McInnes said he had suffered a “severe heart attack”, sharing a video wearing a medical mask. By the next month, communications had ceased.
It looked like the final act in a year-long saga involving Banksy art, supercars and heartbroken investors around the world.
McInnes, who had been linked to a company involved in a high-profile property collapse in Liverpool in 2017, has now been named as a defendant in a civil class action case launched by lawyers in New York. They have alleged that he was a part of what they describe as a “cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme” which they estimate collected $440 million (£330 million) in a single year. It is not a fraud claim. He denies the allegations.
From bricks to blockchain
McInnes had a reputation for being more flamboyant than your average Merseyside property developer.
Once a pub landlord, he later built a name for himself as a “very dynamic personality” in Liverpool development, who could be spotted around town in cowboy boots, driving an Aston Martin.
In 2015, he emerged as one of the public faces of North Point Global, a company behind a quartet of eye-catching property schemes in the northwest. The company’s flagship project, a £200 million luxury flat development in Liverpool’s historic Chinatown, was promoted by the chancellor at the time, George Osborne, during a UK trade mission to China. It was meant to be a crown jewel in the government’s Northern Powerhouse initiative.
However, by 2017 North Point Global was mired in controversy and had filed for insolvency after money laundering allegations surfaced against McInnes.
Preston crown court heard how McInnes had close ties to Stephen and Peter Clarke in the crime proceedings brought against the brothers and to Anthony Quigley — all convicted drug dealers and well-known figures in Liverpool’s criminal underworld.
A detective described McInnes during the proceedings as “possibly” being involved in money laundering, claiming that he would “front companies, run them until accounts are due, then scrap them and move on”.
McInnes dismissed the allegations in the Liverpool Echo as “misleading and untrue”, noting that he was not in court to refute the “scandalous and unmerited slurs” and that he had never been questioned over allegations of financial criminality. No findings were made against him in the matter and he was never charged with any wrongdoing.
He later denied any formal association with North Point Global. Described as the founder of the company, he has never officially been listed as its director or shareholder, nor of its contractor, PHD1, although he had been described as the chairman of both firms in the company’s press releases.
The promised buyer-funded developments would never materialise, leaving creditors owed an estimated £40 million. About 700 investors in Hong Kong were estimated to have lost an average of £45,000 each, with further losses across Asia and beyond.
Accusations of fraud followed, though North Point Global denied any wrongdoing. In 2021 the Serious Fraud Office announced their long-running investigation into the collapse of the developments had been discontinued due to “insufficient evidence”.
A representative for McInnes said: “It is not appropriate to expect a response to matters that came to a formal legal investigatory conclusion some four years ago and which occurred almost a decade ago.” North Point Global did not respond to a request for comment.
The episode was highly embarrassing for Liverpool City council, which had entrusted North Point Global with delivering the New Chinatown scheme over another more established developer, despite the firm having only been incorporated two months earlier.
In the years that followed, the failed developments became notorious eyesores. New Chinatown, in particular, became a haven for fly-tippers, often strewn with abandoned shopping trolleys and crisp packets. The council eventually bought the site from administrators for £10 million in December last year.
By then, McInnes — long based in Dubai — had resurfaced with a new venture. Once again, the businessman was promising investors an innovative way to grow their cash. But this time, the assets were less tangible than bricks and mortar: they were digital.
“An answer to prayer”
In March 2023 Craig Zadrapa heard a call from God. His close friend was dying and needed a kidney transplant. Zadrapa, an American father of five, said it felt “like the Lord was telling me I’m supposed to donate my kidney to him”.
The organ was a perfect match and his friend, who likely would not have survived the five-year waiting list he had been placed on, was saved. Zadrapa, 44, however, became seriously unwell, as his remaining kidney failed to react as it should have to losing its partner.
The Montana-based operations manager started thinking about saving for his family should the worst happen. That’s when a friend told him about TradeAI.
In spring 2023, a new online investment platform had been launched to much fanfare in parts of the cryptocurrency world. It offered people the chance to earn staggering returns in a matter of days.
The scheme claimed to use advanced computer programmes to grow investors’ money, using the expertise of a start-up founder called Guillermo Gharib, described by crypto influencers as a “genius-level trader”.
Investors first were invited to purchase digital membership passes — non-fungible tokens, or NFTs — granting access to TradeAI’s investment pools. These pools, which capped individual investments, advertised “extraordinary profits” of up to 50 per cent in days, some claiming principal protection.
Zadrapa was sceptical at first of the project which sounded “too good to be true”. But he watched as his friend, whom he described as a “very savvy” businessman, made astonishing returns. Eventually he took the plunge, investing $60,000 dollars (£45,000) in August 2023. A week later he withdrew $72,000 (£54,000).
“I felt like this was an answer to prayer,” he recalled. “I was uncertain what was going to happen to me if my kidney didn’t get better. I wanted to secure a future for my family.”
After a few successful cycles, Zadrapa invested a lump sum of $500,000 (£375,000). An experienced investor, he was encouraged by endorsements from well-known crypto influencers and the visible presence of the project’s founders, who were “out in the open” on video calls rather than hiding behind screens.
Other users said they were drawn by the scheme’s exclusivity. “Pools filled up instantly,” said one British man. Ben Phillips, 45, from Essex, concurred: “There was a fear of missing out.”
“No need to panic”
In September 2023 TradeAI users found they were unable to withdraw their funds. “You were hitting the button trying to get your money out but the money wouldn’t drop,” one recalled.
The company assured people it was working to resolve what were described as temporary issues. “No need to panic,” users were told. “YOUR funds are safe.”
By October, the TradeAI team were claiming that funds were locked in a frozen account on Binance, a large crypto exchange, which had flagged some accounts as “high risk”. Investors in what was termed the “backlog” provided passports and other confidential information to “unstick” their money.
The TradeAI team described the moment as “a test of strength and trust”. Yet Binance would later deny any connection, stating: “Binance is not a partner to the alleged project and has no relation with it.”
On October 24, all repayments stopped. As excuses piled up, users began to question whether they had fallen victim to a Ponzi scheme, which the team vigorously denied. Then, a week later, TradeAI announced that a new entity, UA3, would step in and manage the platform’s recovery efforts. The announcement emphasised that “there are sufficient assets to make the repayments required”.
The Dubai-based firm, co-founded by McInnes and another British national, James Abbass Biniaz, or “Jim”, was described as having expertise in security and the ability to solve complex business problems.
What investors were not told was any of McInnes’s previous history, nor the fact that Biniaz had been jailed for 22 months after being convicted for VAT fraud in 2010.
Biniaz, going by Jim Aylward, had also previously co-founded a cryptocurrency platform called the London Football Exchange. The company in 2020 was subject to a freezing order over allegations of investment fraud.
The High Court heard claims the platform was “the latest cryptocurrency shams worth millions of pounds” and was “designed to extract moneys from investors”.
None of this was mentioned in a press release issued by UA3 which described Biniaz as having a background in mergers and acquisitions.
New York lawyers now representing a group of 220 international investors said the firm had “no experience in crisis management, nor did any member of their team have Blockchain specific experience that would have made them suitable for handling this situation”.
Nevertheless, Phillips, who had invested £150,000, claims they were “led to believe Paddy was the saviour”.
UA3 told investors TradeAI’s collapse was due to external security breaches and corporate mismanagement by a gifted but inexperienced team. They promised to stabilise operations and bring in additional capital to ensure repayments.
In the meantime, the TradeAI team announced they were launching a new venture: Stakx. Investors were being asked to put more money into a second scheme and, remarkably, many did just that.
A second scheme
The new platform abandoned the investment pool model and instead introduced a series of “syndicates”. One of these, “Paddy’s syndicate”, was said to be backed by art owned by McInnes, as well as “a supercar collection worth over $20 million USD” stored in a “temperature-controlled warehouse” in Dubai.
McInnes described himself as “one of the biggest private collectors of Banksy in the world”, adding: “We took them down from the side of buildings and rescued and restored them. And eventually immortalised them on the Blockchain.” McInnes’s representative said he “owns numerous Banksy works of art for which he has both provenance and proof of ownership”.
Years previously, Banksy murals, including the “Liverpool Rat” and “Love Plane”, had been stripped from city walls ready to be displayed in a gallery inside one of North Point Global’s developments. Instead, after the scheme fell apart, the pieces were reported to have been sold to a buyer in Qatar for £3.2 million.
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UA3 also claimed they had access to a $100 million funding facility in a letter, signed by Biniaz, claiming ties to Cypher Capital, a crypto investment firm in the United Arab Emirates. Cypher would later publicly deny any association with the group, warning: “Please be aware of this scam.”
By that point, however, hundreds of people would have poured millions more dollars into StakX, which lawyers now claim represented a “thinly-veiled attempt” to prolong the original scheme. In fact they argue it “presented a much clearer multi-level marketing (MLM) or umbrella hierarchy”. While it initially generated profits for users, like TradeAI, it eventually stopped payments without notice.
In December last year, Burwick Law filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of 220 international investors, who they claim lost $20 million (£15 million) between them through the schemes. The New York-based law firm argues the total amount put into both schemes is around the $440 million mark (£330 million). Although the firm calls it a “cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme”, the clients’ case does not argue a fraud was committed. Instead, they argue that they were sold securities in violation of the US Securities Act.
The Times has seen a separate document showing details of 1,700 investors with investments in excess of $100 million (£75 million). About 150 of these are listed living in the UK and being owed over $8 million (£6 million), with that figure understood to be conservative estimate.
A representative for McInnes said he had no knowledge of any proceedings against him. He said McInnes “has never had any type of formal business partnership” with Biniaz but had travelled to Costa Rica to provide security for Gharib whose life and family were in “critical danger” after the collapse of TradeAI.
He also denied that McInnes had “any interest in the management, operation or ownership of TradeAI”, had “any financial benefit out of TradeAI either directly or through any third party” or any “involvement with venture capitalists or Cypher Capital in relation to UA3”.
The spokesman added that Stakx had been established “in an attempt to restructure and mitigate TradeAI losses”, denying McInnes “had any financial benefit” through the scheme.
Armed guards and barbecues
Why would already burnt investors have trusted the same group again with their funds?
Many who spoke to The Times say they think they fell victim to a sophisticated psychological game — one that offered just enough to quiet their doubts and delay their exit.
Zadrapa, cautious at first after his experience with TradeAI, saw friends profit with Stakx and eventually reinvested, receiving 37 payments, including $400,000 (£300,000) in interest. By spring last year, he had over $2 million (£1.5 million) tied up in both schemes, money he has not got back. “I just got caught up in the whole hope of it,” he said.
Other users explained how there had been something reassuring about how the team had not cut and run when TradeAI failed. Instead, they hosted multiple online “ask me anything” sessions, while groups were invited out to Costa Rica on subsidised trips to watch Gharib at work to help quell their doubts.
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One source described Gharib as being “always on his phone doing trades and talking with investors”, adding: “He would pull in tens of thousands of dollars while we had coffee or a sandwich. It was crazy. He also gambled on his phone, huge sums of money.”
The team, he said, “worked all day but knew how to party”. The Times has reviewed photo and video evidence showing people being entertained in Escazú, at the luxury villa sources said McInnes had rented.
He was highly active on X under the handle @PaddyisBored, an account that has since been deleted — his representative said this was because of threats later made to McInnes and his family. On New Year’s Eve 2023, he celebrated a “record week” for “Paddy’s syndicate” by posting a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, a film about a corrupt stockbroker who made millions through fraud and market manipulation.
“We are going to the moon,” he posted a couple of days later, before announcing later that month that the only “risk” with the scheme was “how much you gonna print”.
Biniaz filmed himself in an empty Dubai office, calling it an “accelerator” for the project. The real estate agent later clarified he was only inspecting the space.
Investors claim the team fostered a cult-like, “evangelical” culture around the scheme, discouraging dissent. On video calls with increasingly frustrated users, seen by The Times, McInnes claimed the company was making sacrifices to help them. No one wanted to be labelled a “fudder”, someone spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Investors in TradeAI had previously been required to sign a contract with Stakx stating their funds would be returned to them in 90 days to 120 days provided they did not “disparage or defame” the company.
When payments again stopped, McInnes insisted only users who had not given the team “constant hell” would be paid back.
“We’re sick of holding people’s money, to be honest,” he said. “I don’t want to sound like I don’t understand people’s suffering and struggling. But we’re all suffering and struggling because it’s a tough tough thing to take care of.”
The endgame
As the April 12 repayment deadline for investors grew closer, it seemed to them that little progress was being made to recover their funds. Then, on April 2, McInnes said he had a heart attack, after which he immediately left Costa Rica.
The next week, Stakx offered to repay investors using digital “pods” that appeared to lack any inherent value instead of cash. On April 12, they claimed their Binance account held no funds, announcing legal action. The same post promoted yet another product.
Gharib posted a final message on Discord, in an apparent attempt at crisis management, denying the “false accusations pointing fingers to Paddy and Jim”.
But on April 22, McInnes posted in one of the Discord groups, accusing Gharib who he claimed “conned and scammed” him. “We were all f***ed by an expert and genius in scams. I 100 per cent believed in what we were doing,” he said, claiming he had personally lost vast amounts of money in the schemes.
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As blame was being cast in different directions, investors remained in the dark, their questions now going unanswered by Stakx representatives as communications ceased and previously hyperactive social media accounts were deleted.
More than a year on, many say they have struggled to rebuild their lives. The Times has heard stories of divorces, failed businesses and homes being reposessed.
Zadpara said he thought “a few times” about taking his own life. “Almost everything” he had was wiped out by the investments he had made in TradeAI and Stakx. He currently does not have the funds for the disc and knee replacements he urgently needs.
“I felt like a disappointment to my family,” he said, holding back tears a year-and-a-half on. “I let them down real bad.”
Biniaz and Gharib did not respond to a request for comment.
Accountability
Crypto is the Wild West of the financial world, with few protections for investors. In the UK, the FCA only regulates the asset class for marketing and anti-money laundering, meaning investors are rarely covered if things go wrong.
Investors from around the world said they had tried contacting their local police forces, but had had little success, turning instead to private companies, including Burwick Law, a specialist in crypto litigation, which has launched a class action on their behalf.
These lawyers say they have found “no indication” the trading conducted by the TradeAI and Stakx teams “actually achieved anywhere near their unbelievable returns”. They claim a review of “more than one million transactions related to these accounts” had found they “actually lost more than $4 million through trading losses and transaction fees”.
Max Burwick, the firm’s director, said he would encourage regulators to look into the circumstances of the collapse of the scheme.
A spokesman for Merseyside police said: “We are aware of potential Merseyside links to this large-scale international investigation. Following information received in 2024, expert guidance is being sought via the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).” The North West Regional Organised Crime Unit confirmed McInnes was “not under investigation” by that force.
Since the collapse of Stakx, McInnes had largely disappeared from public view — until June, when Wonderwall Fine Arts, a Dubai-based gallery selling what it claims are genuine Banksy prints, launched with a flurry of glossy videos. The chief executive is McInnes’s partner and he features prominently in the images posted to the group’s social media, giving a speech and leading visitors around the gallery, although his representative said he had “no interest in Wonderwall Fine Art”.
Not everyone was thrilled by McInnes’s reappearance. “Hey Paddy,” one Instagram user commented, “I am waiting on my StakX funds. Looks like you recovered nicely from your heart attack.”
