A March 27 article in the BBC exposed a whisky cask fraud scam helmed by an ex-conman that led to hundreds of victims losing their life savings. Through an investigation, the British outlet discovered that one of the victims was a woman with terminal cancer, who put up £76,000 ($98,632) on casks that were worth only a small percentage of that — and some didn’t exist at all.
A few days later, the outlet shared the personal account of BBC Investigations Correspondent Samantha Poling who went undercover to catch the individual behind the scheme in the act. She used a facial recognition app to find out that the CEO of one of the companies, Cask Whisky Ltd, used an alias — Craig Arch. In reality, his name was Craig Brooks, and BBC Reports that he spent time in jail after participating in a previous investment scam to the tune of £6.2M ($8M)
BBC Producer Liam McDougall approached Poling after a “whistleblower” came to him, claiming that “organized crime had infiltrated the whisky industry.” He gave Poling a list of potentially fraudulent whisky cask companies and asked her if she would be willing to look into Cask Whisky Ltd. Poling connected the dots and saw that the CEO was a man named Craig Arch — her guy.
During Poling’s investigation, the London Police began investigating Cask Whisky Ltd over fraud charges, but another cask investment company popped up: Cask Spirits Global. As Poling looked into the company, she noticed similarities with the branding and reached out, pretending to be a representative for a client looking to invest. An individual named Craig Hutchins responded to her email.
She went undercover and met Hutchins in the flesh only to discover she was staring down Craig Brooks, the convicted fraudster. During her meeting with Brooks, she met two other employees who she reports were both using aliases. It appeared that Brooks used multiple aliases to set up multiple shell whisky cask investment companies that would scam unwitting victims out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Our Founder Jay West considers this “the most extreme example” of cask fraud. Though West is “deeply involved” in buying and selling casks, he expressed he would never consider investing in whisky casks a way to get rich quickly.
“I don’t think it’s something that nobody should do, but as somebody who knows whiskey really well and whose job is to buy and sell casks, I would definitely not make this my way to plan on retiring later in life.”
Unfortunately, many of the victims in the UK cask fraud scam involving Craig Brooks planned on using whisky investing as a way to retire.
Victims of Cask Fraud Come Forward and Share Stories of Loss
VinePair reported that victims of these scams were tricked and either purchased overpriced casks, casks that were sold to many people, or casks that never existed.
A woman named Alison Cocks invested approximately £103,000 ($133,368) in Cask Whisky Ltd. When she tried to sell, she phoned the company — she got no response.
“Suddenly they didn’t want to talk to me anymore,” Cocks shared with the BBC. “They were avoiding my calls. I was really panicking. I decided I would start investigating my own casks. On my certificates, it showed where my casks were, allegedly. When I actually contacted those warehouses, they weren’t there.”
Cocks consulted independent whisky appraisers who told her that she paid up to five times what the barrels were worth, according to the outlet. She discovered that the most expensive cask she purchased for £49,500 ($64,249.76) did not exist.
In a particularly tragic turn of events, one of Brook’s other companies, Whisky of Scotland, swindled Jay Evans, a woman grappling with terminal cancer.
She sold her home and used the money to invest in whisky casks. She knew cask investment could be lucrative, and believed the dividends would offer long-term security for her family. She purchased seven casks and discovered that two did not exist and five were sold to her for significantly higher prices than their actual value.
After Evans learned she had been duped, she was informed that it would take up to 25 years to recoup the financial damage. In short order, her wife ended up having to go back to work.
“They’ve made somebody who’s facing end of life at an early age, they’ve made it infinitely more difficult,” Evans told the BBC. “None of it will matter to people like this.”
An Industry Reacts To Whisky Cask Fraud, Urges Transparency
Kenny Macdonald is the owner of Dram Mor, a Whisky Cask Company, and he believes there are honest cask investment companies despite multiple instances of fraud making media headlines.
Macdonald claimed to the BBC he had heard his share of success stories in the world of cask investing, but these positive stories are overshadowed by accounts of scams.
“And then you get the ones who are downright nasty. And they’re selling somebody a piece of paper, for a cask that just never existed,” Macdonald expressed. “The sharks are circling. They know there’s blood. They can smell it. And unfortunately, in this particular case, the blood is whisky.”
Since the BBC’s investigation, other members of the trade have shared their reactions online.
“As someone who has been accused of sounding like a broken record on this topic, it’s encouraging to see that BBC’s award-winning investigative journalists are now digging into the backgrounds of these charlatans running so-called ‘whisky cask investment companies,'” said Whisky Consultant & Broker Blair Bowman on LinkedIn.
Whisky Writer and Keeper of the Quaich Filipe Schrieberg launched Protectyourcask.com in March 2024 as part of a response to the rampant instances of fraud. The following month, Schrieberg spoke with The Drinks Business about the “unregulated” and “highly risky market.”
“This is exactly the wrong time to be investing in casks, because whisky casks are down as much as 45% in some regards,” West explained. “In any other market that would be viewed as a total collapse.”
Though West went on to share he viewed the significant drop in value of whisky casks as a “market correction” due to the balloon during the COVID-19 Pandemic, he would never recommend purchasing and selling whisky casks as a way to outperform the market. Yet for those interested in investing in casks, West shared some advice:
“My recommendation is that if you are going to invest in whiskey, you should work with someone who is accredited, you should work with someone who has a strong track record, you should work with someone you can meet with in person and see the inventory that you are purchasing and in that case, you can separate the bad actors from people who are going to do this reputably,” West expressed.
Many individuals interested in investing in whisky casks have rallied the scotch industry to get the government or a regulatory body involved, yet it appears more complicated than that. The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) shared that cask fraud prevention falls outside of the SWA’s responsibilities, even though the problem could potentially undermine the credibility of the industry at large.
As far as the current economic outlook is, with a looming trade war on the horizon, the future doesn’t look any rosier for whisky cask investment.
“A lot of people were sold these cask investment claims as whisky was way on the way up,” West explained. “But they are in for a reckoning as things outside of their control such as the economy and tariffs are manipulating the price of casks in such a negative way. I think there’s going to be tremendous upheaval in terms of people who invested in whisky casks when they were the most expensive — I want to say 2020 and 2021, and even parts of 2023.”
West went on to explain that a barrel could have been purchased for $2,500 and sold to another broker for as much as $5,000 or $6,000 in 2023. Now, the value has dropped back down to $3,000.
“I think a lot of people will be left holding the bag just assuming that whisky would go up,” West concluded. “And there’s nothing to say that if you don’t hold onto your whisky casks long enough they won’t return to that valuation, but a lot of people looking for the pump and dump or that quick moneymaking scheme because they were lead to believe there as a quick opportunity for wealth are going to find out otherwise.”
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