How a Cotswolds fraudster stole thousands by claiming links to Princess Anne and more

Lois Bhagwan, 56, enticed her victims – who included a former Fijian international rugby captain – with promises of high returns, investing in her charitable project’s high-interest fund.

But a tiny proportion – around £10,000 – of the money paid over has ever been returned, with many victims left empty handed.

Bhagwan, who during her five-week trial at Oxford Crown Court claimed links with heads of state, ambassadors and Hollywood A-listers, remained impassive in the dock as the jury returned guilty verdicts to seven counts of fraud. She was acquitted of three other charges.

Remanding her in custody, Judge Ian Pringle QC said: “You’ve been found guilty by this jury of seven serious charges of fraud by misrepresentation or the equivalent. The sentence I am going to pass on you must be one of immediate imprisonment. Quite how long that will be is for me to consider when I have heard your learned counsel next week.”

Welcoming the conviction, Det Insp Duncan Wynn of Thames Valley Police’s economic crime unit said: “I think it shows Lois Bhagwan was a serious criminal and that these offences warranted an appearance at Oxford Crown Court and subsequent conviction.”

Fijian-born film producer Bhagwan’s Lionheart Project was touted as a way of connecting people around the world to solve issues facing communities across the globe.

The scheme, which was launched at an event in the St Regis Hotel, Washington DC, in 2001 attended by former Amnesty International director Jack Healey, had its origins in the early 1990s.

The defendant hoped to create a film and associated TV series focusing on different communities around the world with people she branded ‘Lionhearts’.

Over time the ambition grew, with a worldwide network of ‘Lionhearts’ and plans for a global launch of the film together with interactive ‘experiences’ capable of connecting people virtually around the world.

Bhagwan set her sights high. In the early 1990s, she approached former international cricketer Imran Khan, now prime minister of Pakistan, who was then raising money for a hospital in Lahore. He passed her on to his fundraising manager, Jacqueline Cowen. She told jurors: “She said she was making a film...It was to help raise funds for various charities in the world and Imran Khan’s was one of them.”

The defendant’s globetrotting lifestyle saw her visit Egypt and Israel in company with former Sunday Times photographer Bryan Wharton, who snapped her meeting soldiers and diplomats.

She claimed to be funding the Lionheart Project out of her own royalty income from films she’d produced and, later, through a multi-million pound high-interest fund.

Her victims – some of whom later set up a ‘defamatory’ website naming Ms Bhagwan and exposing the fraud – were told that their money would be placed with this fund, which during her trial she said had been registered in South Korea.

In total, her victims lost almost £160,000.

They included the ex-captain of the Fijian national rugby team, who lost almost £2,000 to the fraud.

Former Saracens star Mosese Rauluni, 46, told the jury he was looking for investments as he neared retirement.

He was introduced to Lois Bhagwan by the Fijian High Commissioner to the UK, Pio Bosco Tikoisuva.

Mr Rauluni described the defendant as ‘bubbly’ and said her project ‘looked pretty promising to me’.

He’d invested a total of £1,950 in two chunks in 2010 and she asked him to try and get other rugby players involved in the project. He told jurors via video link from Australia that she’d kept asking him to invest more money, but he wasn’t able to.

Bhagwan was said to have spoken of getting sponsorship for the Fijian national rugby side. She told him at one stage that she’d got hold of £12m and seemed ‘extremely excited about that’.

Mr Rauluni left the UK in 2012 and had not seen a return on his investment.

Oxford Crown Court Picture: ED NIX

Victim Wanda Arnold, who was persuaded into handing over £25,000 for two shares in the Lionheart Project plus a further £5,000 for a ‘short-term’ loan, described being in awe of the woman.

“I thought she was a very nice lady, very enthusiastic. You got swept along with her. She was vivacious, she was very well connected and there were times I felt in awe of her,” the Worcestershire woman told jurors.

“She said she knew people like Condoleeza Rice, who was the [US] Secretary of State at the time, the High Commissioner of here, the High Commissioner of there.”

Mrs Arnold said she’d first met Bhagwan in December 2006 when she knocked on the door of their home in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, and asked for some mistletoe to take to friends on an estate in Scotland where she was spending Christmas.

The victim said of Bhagwan: “She said she was a film producer. She made or produced films and that she’d gone out with some film people like the guy who played Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter [Tom Felton].”

The con artist spoke to them about the Lionheart project and explained there were opportunities for the Arnolds, who ran a water treatment company.

Within six months she had persuaded them to buy two shares in the project, paying £12,500 for each share, promising high returns and no risk to the original capital. Paperwork sent in 2008 and 2009 suggested they had made more than £8,300 in interest.

In emails read to the jury, Bhagwan described herself as the Arnold’s ‘sister’, addressed them as ‘bro’ and ‘sis’ and spoke of a special bond.

In March 2010, she sent an urgent plea to Mrs Arnold asking for her help to raise £30,000 for a short-term loan. The victim eventually handed over £5,000 – trying to hide the payment from her husband, by then suspicious. Bhagwan promised to return the cash with £500 interest.

By 2011, Bhagwan was no longer responding to calls or emails. The couple, who had not received any money, hired a private investigator to try and track the woman down. She did eventually get in contact, claiming to have been ill and promising to arrange payment.

The couple has still not been reimbursed by Bhagwan.

Other victims included Bhagwan’s former neighbours in the Cotswolds, the manager of a Highlands estate where she holidayed and an oil man she’d met in Egypt.

How did the scam work?

Investors were lured in by promises of high returns of 12.5 per cent. Documentation boasted of the Lionheart Project having $450m in an investment fund and a further $125m in a ‘working capital fund’. The project was funded from the interest earned and the royalties from Bhagwan’s film career.

She told jurors about the ‘Korean Fund’, run by a ‘Mr Kim’ – who she said she’d met on a trip to Seoul, South Korea.

Investment cash would be paid into the bank account of Jennifer Butler, Bhagwan’s friend and the woman she claimed organised the Lionheart Project’s receipts. Records showed the money would swiftly be taken out in cash. On one occasion, £6,000 was wired directly to a Stephen Peters of Arizona, USA, described as a project representative.

The defendant claimed that investors’ details would be registered with the Fijian reserve bank and with Mr Kim of the Korean Fund. That meant their ‘shares’ would accrue interest despite the fact the money they’d wired had, in effect, been withdrawn in cash and spent.

Kyu Kim's business card, shown to the jury Picture: CPS

Bhagwan said she’d received regular updates from Mr Kim and passed on the information about the interest earned to her investors.

Those investors could be paid the interest or let their shares mature. All were given convertible notes and updates on how much their shares were worth.

She claimed that a ‘defamatory’ website naming her and exposing the fraud had frightened Mr Kim. The Korean Fund was broken up, with the fund manager creating a trust – which she named in the dock as ‘The Lionheart Project Trust Company’ – based in the British Virgin Islands.

The effect of the website was dramatic. By 2011 she had ‘nothing left’, she told the court.

Only one witness, victim Francis Tedd, could remember Bhagwan speaking of the Korean Fund. Others, including her secretary Natalie Lee, could not recall her mentioning the fund.

Bhagwan was said to have tried to bolster her credentials, falsely naming the New York offices of law firm Solomon, Blum and Heyman as the Lionheart Project’s Big Apple base.

Partner in the firm William Blum said he’d asked her to stop using the address in 2005, although he added they had allowed her to send a limited amount of correspondence to the office before that.

The defendant had falsely suggested that hedge fund managers Citco, which has experience of running trust companies, was a trustee of a supposed British Virgin Islands-based Lionheart Project trust. Former director Ernst-Pieter Knüpfer said Bhagwan had spoken to him about setting up an organisation in the BVI to handle any royalties from the film, but no such structure was ever set up.

She was also said to have forged a letter from Mr Blum’s firm. Bhagwan said the letter had been produced for her friend, Marjorie Mount, following a discussion about Princess Diana interviewer Martin Bashir forging bank statements. She had put together the letter to show how easily a forgery could be produced, she claimed.

The forged lawyer's letter produced by Bhagwan Picture: CPS

What did she spend the money on?

The woman Bhagwan nicknamed ‘Budgie’ – her neighbour in Milton-under-Wychwood Marjorie Monks – said she thought her erstwhile friend was ‘some sort of ambassador involved in humanitarian projects around the world’.

For Jack Healey, a former Amnesty International director who spoke at the Lionheart Project’s launch, she was a ‘decent person trying to do good in the world’.

Victim Wanda Arnold described feeling ‘in awe’ of Bhagwan. Others questioned why this woman, who claimed to know Hollywood A-listers, prime ministers and ambassadors, would speak to them.

She lived an ambassadorial lifestyle, renting a flat in Craven Street, Westminster – next door to the former home of Moby Dick author Herman Melville.

In London, she met Sunday Times photographer Bryan Wharton at the Chelsea Arts Club. The award-winning artist, who documented her trip to Egypt and Israel in 2007, said they’d later met the Mongolian ambassador at the Commonwealth Club.

A former president of the Royal Photographic Society described attending an event in Craven Street. Bhagwan allegedly told him she knew Gordon Brown.

She’d claimed to have links to then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, actors Denzel Washington and Kristin Scott-Thomas had been given the script of the Lionheart Project film, and her address book apparently contained the details of the Dalai Lama and Princess Anne.

A line from Bhagwan's papers, apparently a to-do list and a list of contact details, in which she writes: 'Princess Anne's letter to JACQUII.'

Another page from the papers references Kristin Scott Thomas and the Dalai Lama's private secretary Picture: CPS

Hilary Clinton's name appears on one of Bhagwan's to do lists Picture: CPS

Bhagwan moved to Milton-under-Wychwood, near Burford, in around 2005. Initially she rented a small cottage in the grounds of a larger home in Jubilee Lane for short periods, before renting it directly from the owners – the son and daughter-in-law of Marjorie Monks, who lived in the larger house. The cottage was described as her ‘country retreat’.

The lettings agent who initially dealt with the property said Bhagwan was ‘always’ late in paying her rent, once even asking to use a ruby ring as surety. By 2008, she’d apparently stopped paying her £920-a month rent, with a year’s worth of rent arrears owing. Her friend, Ms Butler, transferred £8,000 to the Monks.

From Milton-under-Wychwood, she moved to nearby village Kelmscott in 2009. The following year she left for France.

Jurors were told that witnesses had been left with the impression she’d owned the Craven Street building and that Mrs Monks was her tenant in Milton-under-Wychwood. Bhagwan denied telling them she owned the properties.

Money was spent on car leasing, including hiring a Land Rover Freelander. An employee was kept on a retainer of £1,600 a month. That employee, Ms Lee, described Bhagwan’s lifestyle as generous; she always had £50 notes and said she had an account with aristocratic banking house Coutts, it was claimed. Cash, which the defendant said was necessary during her trips ‘in the field’, was also spent on flights and stays at hotels.

Bhagwan holidayed in Scotland, staying at luxury lodges on the Portnellan Estate, near Loch Lomond. She would later scam several thousand pounds from estate owner Cameron Taylor.

Jubilee Lane, Milton-under-Wychwood Picture: OXFORD MAIL

Craven Street, Westminster Picture: GOOGLE MAPS

I’ll pay them back, says fraudster

Put in the witness stand, Bhagwan maintained her account – and her intention to pay everyone’s money back.

Taken to the documents in the jury bundle, defence barrister Nicola Howard QC asked her client: “Was what you had written here what you believed?”

“Absolutely – and still do,” she replied.

The funds invested by the alleged victims were ‘used for the production’, she said.

“What did that encompass?” asked Ms Howard.

Bhagwan replied: “Everything to do with developing the Lionheart project. All our day to day work, our travel, our meetings.”

She had had the first idea for the Lionheart film in the 1990s.

She’d had a list of actors earmarked for leading or cameo roles and had ‘discussed it with quite a few of them’. Bhagwan named Four Weddings and a Funeral star Kristin Scott-Thomas and Oscar winner Denzel Washington. “These are all people with whom I discussed the project. They all had scripts.”

“Everybody was going to do it for ‘scale’ [a basic rate] and most of the cameos would have been just special appearances,” she said.

Cross-examining her, prosecutor James Norman labelled Bhagwan’s account ‘nonsense’ and accused her of stealing money.

She denied wrongdoing, telling the jury: “There is no reproach against me in any other country in the world and I have been doing this in all the countries of the world.” Her ‘good name and credentials should speak for themselves’, she added.

The defendant claimed she had been days away from securing funding to further develop the Lionheart Project when she was arrested in France in 2020.

Bhagwan repeatedly told the jury the proof of her claims were contained in her papers, which were still in France. She claimed she had not been able to access these as she’d been held in custody since her arrest.

She was asked about an email she’d sent to Wanda Arnold, who had paid over £25,000 in exchange for shares in the Lionheart Project then lent her £5,000 in 2010 ostensibly to help fund a quick reaction force based in Egypt to take aid to the Yemen.

That message was sent as Mrs Arnold and her husband, who had hired a private investigator, were chasing Bhagwan for updates about their investment.

The Lionheart founder claimed to have been working ’20 hour plus days because of the international situation last week’.

Asked what that situation was, Bhagwan told jurors she’d been assisting Filipo Tarakinikini. The former Fijian Army officer, who quit his role following a 2000 coup, was said to have been working as United Nations head of security in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Bhagwan claimed to have been supporting Lt Col Tarakinikini by ‘talking to tribal leaders in Afghanistan and eastern Pakistan’.

“What were you saying to them?” Mr Norman asked. She responded: “These are all communities that were part of the Lionheart Project. We were intervening to find a solution to the situation that had arisen at the time.”

Bhagwan said it was ‘not right’ that her alleged victims had set up a website publicly outing her as a fraudster.

“It’s not right, what they did. I travelled all the time. They did it while I was out of the country in the field. That’s not right. They didn’t just do it to me but all the people who had helped.”

Bhagwan claimed the dean of the diplomatic corps in Paris - the title given to the longest-serving foreign ambassador to a country, but whom she did not name - had spoken to her about the website. “He said ‘Lois, we know your years of hard work, don’t worry, it doesn’t affect how we think of you.’” She later said he’d told her to address the issue.

She said she would ‘gladly’ pay her investors back, adding: “I will.”

The defendant said she’d asked for the Korean Fund to be broken up so she could reimburse those who’d invested in the project. The fund managers had set up a trust – apparently so the money could be repaid - but she had not asked why they had set up a trust or how it would operate.

An incredulous Mr Norman quizzed her: “These people were setting up a trust to do something with money that was yours and you never asked them why?”

She replied: “I trusted them. Mr Kim [the fund manager] was a very, very honourable man.”

‘This was hubris and fantasy’

The image chosen to showcase the Lionheart Project was significant, prosecutor James Norman told the 12-strong jury.

It showed a young Lois Bhagwan staring in black and white from the pages of the brochure given to potential investors.

“It’s the clearest illustration – literally – of what the prosecution says all this was actually about. It was all about Lois Bhagwan,” he said.

The Lionheart Project had been suffused with ‘hubris and fantasy’.

Lois Bhagwan's image from the marketing material, a copy of which was shown to the jury Picture: CPS

Mr Norman said: “The absolute maximum that Ms Bhagwan when she gave her evidence claimed for the Lionheart Project was that the roll-out whatever that meant would have started on October 25, 2020, four days after she was arrested in France.

“She does seem, you might think, to have very bad luck in relation to actually making the Lionheart Project a reality.

“First there was, she told you, 9/11. Then in 2008 financial crashes. Then the website in 2010 that she says was so detrimental to her project.

“There is always some excuse why she couldn’t pay these people back their money.

“Always some intervening international crisis or French police officer which meant the Lionheart Project never really got off the ground and more importantly for these purposes these people couldn’t get their money back.”

Mr Norman accepted that Bhagwan was not motivated ‘simply’ by greed, unlike some who steal others’ money.

The defendant was ‘not stupid’ and realised that she would not be able to fund the ‘diplomatic lifestyle to which she aspired’ through simple donations, he said.

Jurors were told: “The Lionheart Project is not on trial. The defendant is.”

The prosecutor accused her of finding and exploiting her victims’ weaknesses, such as their desire to own their own home or see their business prosper, of providing documents that reassured them their investments were safe, then marshalling ‘increasingly elaborate excuses’ for why the money could not be paid out.

Taking the jury through the messages she’d sent her alleged victims and the paperwork detailing the interest their ‘investment’ was making, Mr Norman said it gave the impression the money had been invested – rather than taken out and spent on the project’s ‘running costs’.

In particular, he pointed to messages sent by Bhagwan in which she said the Lionheart Project’s costs would not be met through the investors’ money.

‘My client is a humanitarian’

Humanitarian, loyal and hardworking. The words chosen by Nicola Howard QC to describe Lois Bhagwan as she closed the defence case.

The silk asked the jury to consider whether the prosecution’s claims ‘made sense’, given her client’s behaviour – introducing her ‘victims’ to each other, remaining ‘around’ for years and visiting children in hospital.

“That’s what fraud’s about: making money quickly, lots of it and get away,” she said. Bhagwan had spoken to ‘everybody’ about the project and what she was doing. Ms Howard asked: “Why bother, why take the risk? It doesn’t make sense.”

One of the alleged victims, Jennifer Butler, who had not provided a statement in support of the investigation, had done the Lionheart Project’s books for several years. “What kind of fraudster, I ask you, allows one of the people she’s stolen money from to do the books?” Bhagwan was later cleared by jurors of defrauding her.

Ms Howard questioned the point of her client’s hard work if the Lionheart Project was a scam. The scheme had had a launch in Washington attended by high-profile people in the humanitarian sector, while Sunday Times photographer Bryan Wharton spoke of them working 12 hour days in baking conditions in Israel and Egypt. Bhagwan had employed a freelancer, who described being ‘really busy’.

Bhagwan had hoped to help others in the same way her family had helped her, the jury heard.

And Ms Howard compared the investments to a group of friends paying for dinner, where one person takes the cash from the table and pays for dinner on their card.

“Yes, the cash was given over, but it was used on the ground to support the project while the money was invested and apportioned in the Korean Fund.”

The jury was urged to ‘be careful’ when considering whether Bhagwan had ‘made up’ the Korean Fund, with Ms Howard reminding the jury that she had travelled to Korea in 2004, had met Mr Kim and his business card was among her papers recovered by the police in the UK.

As Ms Howard read extracts from witness statements in which her client was descried as the ‘daughter I never had’ and a ‘person trying to do good in the world’, Bhagwan could be seen dabbing tears from her eyes.

When the jury carefully considered the evidence, there was nothing that could make them ‘anywhere near sure’, her barrister said.

“This is a criminal court and it’s about criminal behaviour.”