“He took everything, left us with absolutely nothing,” says David Middleton, one of thousands of British and Irish investors who racked up huge losses from the collapse of a German property ponzi scheme.
The 72-year-old pensioner from Northern Ireland is referring to Charles Smethurst, the German-British businessman who set up Dolphin Capital in 2008, later renamed Dolphin Trust, then German Property Group (GPG), with 200 affiliated companies. In July 2020, the business filed for insolvency, owing more than €1bn to up to 25,000 investors around the world.
