Staff at a luxury jewellery retailer were told to pose as customers to trick investors in the UK’s biggest diamond scam, BBC Panorama can reveal.
The deception helped diamond dealer Vashi Dominguez get fresh cash from investors to prop up his business, which collapsed in 2023 with £170m of debts.
Those investors lost everything when the Vashi retail chain’s promised £157m stock of diamonds was later only valued at about £100,000.
Mr Dominguez disappeared, but both the Metropolitan Police and the Serious Fraud Office have decided not to investigate.
BBC Panorama has spoken to former shop staff, investors and the financial experts combing through the wreckage of the company to piece together how Vashi Dominguez fooled so many people – and to ask why authorities are not looking for him.
“This is bigger than Hatton Garden, Brink’s-Mat and the Great Train Robbery combined,” says one of the investors, Michael Moszynski, an advertising executive.
‘The Pied Piper of jewellery’
Vashi Dominguez made his name supplying diamonds to the rich. His reputation grew as his diamond deals grew bigger.
He appeared on ITV’s This Morning, chatting with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, holding a crystal egg, which he claimed was worth £5m and he was selling for a billionaire in Canada.
“Vashi is very dynamic, he’s a very charismatic character. He was almost like the Pied Piper of jewellery retail,” says Will Hayward, a former Vashi store manager.
A still of Vashi Dominguez, again wearing a dark suit and white shirt, in an interview with ITV’s This Morning, in front of a background with what appear to be illuminated crystals resembling diamonds
By 2017, Mr Dominguez was no longer just a diamond dealer to the rich. He was a High Street brand, with Vashi stores in London, Birmingham and Manchester.
Mr Dominguez said he was offering a different kind of jewellery experience, where customers could work with designers and then watch their jewellery being made on site. They were promised high-end diamonds at a cheaper price.
“Vashi was quite a magnetic individual,” says Mr Moszynski. “He had gravitas, he had intelligence, he spoke in a very informed way about every detail of his business.”
Vashi Dominguez backed up his ideas with detailed business plans and accounts. He tricked experienced investors like Clive Schlee, the former boss of the sandwich chain Pret a Manger, and John Caudwell, the mobile phone billionaire.
Mark Schneider, a media executive who co-founded GB News, decided to invest about £750,000. “It seemed good. Some smart guys from around here were in the deal, I just kind of went along with it on that basis,” he says.
The business seemed to be booming. In 2021, Mr Dominguez opened a new flagship store on a prime site in Covent Garden, central London. It was fitted out extravagantly, with a large interactive screen and an £8,000 sofa, staff say
