A former pub landlord turned flamboyant Dubai socialite is facing a multimillion-pound lawsuit in the United States over claims he helped run one of the largest alleged crypto scams of recent years.
Peter McInnes, 56, originally from Merseyside, is accused of playing a central role in a so-called ‘cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme’ that lawyers say extracted more than £330 million from unsuspecting investors worldwide.
Known online as ‘Paddy’, McInnes routinely shared selfies and snaps to X, Discord and other platforms under the now-defunct username ‘Paddy is Bored’ in which he flaunted his luxury supercars and collection of artwork, including several pieces by street artist Banksy.
Plaintiffs allege that façade was part of a much darker operation in which McInnes, along with six other defendants, orchestrated a scam that promised investors stunning returns in the crypto market.
According to the civil case filed in New York by Burwick Law, a firm that specialises in cryptocurrency litigation, McInnes and his partners cut off communications, blamed ‘technical issues’ and ultimately vanished.
In McInnes’ case, his disappearance came shortly after he posted a video from a luxury villa in Costa Rica claiming to have suffered a heart attack days before the companies claimed they were going to repay investors.
He recently appeared in Dubai seemingly alive and well, and denies all the allegations against him.
McInnes is pictured at the wheel of a luxury car in this image
McInnes is seen lying a bed wearing a nebulizer mask. He claimed to have suffered a heart attack days before his companies were due to pay investors
McInnes is seen snapping pictures of luxury cars in Dubai
In early 2023, a cryptocurrency investment platform labelled TradeAI surfaced, promising investors ‘extraordinary profits’ – sometimes between 25%-50% in a matter of days.
The scheme, headed by mysterious Costa-Rica-based trader Guillermo Gharib, granted access to investors via digital passes in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Purchasing this digital token afforded investors the opportunity to allocate funds to high-yield ‘investment pools’.
For months, investors found to their delight that they were able to withdraw their money days after it had been invested with significant profits as advertised, and TradeAI’s investment pools quickly filled up as opportunistic moneymakers flocked to get in on the action.
But in autumn 2023, the TradeAI platform came to an abrupt halt and withdrawals were suddenly rejected.
One investor told The Times: ‘You were hitting the button trying to get your money out but the money wouldn’t drop.’
Investors were told their funds were stuck after Binance, a cryptocurrency trading platform, had frozen an account containing the funds after it had triggered a high-risk alert. They were reassured the money was safe and that it would soon be released.
Binance later reported it had no involvement whatsoever with TradeAI.
What followed bore all the hallmarks of a classic Ponzi scheme.
As investors grew more concerned, TradeAI’s excuses mounted until the company announced that a new firm had been appointed to help recover the funds that remained, inexplicably, inaccessible.
Said firm, UA3, was reportedly co-founded by McInnes and another British-born businessman named James Abbas Biniaz, based in Dubai.
While UA3 was said to be working to reclaim TradeAI’s lost funds, the company launched another cryptocurrency venture called StakX, asking victims to reinvest what was left of their capital into something even more abstract – digital investment ‘syndicates’.
One such fund was ‘Paddy’s Syndicate’, named after McInnes’s nickname. Investors were told it was backed by $20 million worth of luxury cars stored in Dubai and a trove of Banksy artwork.
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’, according to The Times.
StakX followed the same pattern as TradeAI, paying out lucrative returns at first before the money suddenly dried up.
It was later revealed that Biniaz, co-founder of UA3 and McInnes’ partner, was a convicted fraudster, and investors began confronting the reality – that they had spent millions buying securities with no backing whatsoever.
McInnes told investors in Stakx that they would be ‘printing money’. He said he would back his syndicate with $20 million worth of luxury cars stored in Dubai and a trove of Banksy artwork
One disgruntled investor responded to images posted by McInnes showing him seemingly alive and well in Dubai after his ‘heart attack’ in Costa Rica
In late 2023, the platforms had promised investors their money would be returned in short order.
Then in 2024, days out from a stated deadline for the funds to be returned, McInnes shared a video from a bed in a mansion nestled in the hills of Escazú, Costa Rica.
He claimed to have suffered a heart attack and posted a breathless video from the bed, sporting a plaster on the left side of his chest and a breathing mask on his face.
Company communications promptly ceased shortly after.
In December 2024, Burwick Law filed its suit on behalf of 220 disgruntled investors – though many more are believed to have lost money investing on the TradeAI and StakX platforms.
The New York-based firm argues the amount invested across TradeAI and Stakx totals $440 million (£330 million).
The suit described the companies as ‘cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes’, but does not claim fraud, instead arguing that investors were mis-sold securities in violation of the US Securities Act.
McInnes, through an intermediary, told The Times that he had no knowledge of any proceedings against him.
McInnes claimed he ‘never had any type of formal business partnership’ with co-defendant Biniaz, and added that he had left Dubai for Costa Rica – where he allegedly suffered a heart attack – to provide security for TradeAI chief Guillermo Gharib, who was allegedly being threatened by disgruntled investors.
The statement 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… in relation to UA3’.
Lastly, McInnes rejected claims he had enjoyed ‘any financial benefit’ through StakX, adding it the company had been established ‘in an attempt to restructure and mitigate TradeAI losses’.
This alleged crypto scam is not the first controversy to which McInnes has been tied.
He is well known in Merseyside for his connections to North Point Global (NPG) – a property developer that was given the greenlight by Liverpool City Council to oversee a quartet of real estate schemes including the infamous ‘New Chinatown’ development.
James Abbass Biniaz, co-founder of UA3 and co-defendant of Peter McInnes in the civil case
(L-R): Councillor Gary Millar, Simon Law of Hong Kong Homes, and Peter McInnes, pose for a photo following the announcement of North Point Global’s development projects in Liverpool
After months of silence on social media, McInnes this month re-emerged in Dubai. He appeared in videos posted by Wonderwall Fine Arts – a company that claims to be selling genuine Banksy prints like the ‘Liverpool Rat’
McInnes was one of the public faces of the company in 2015, boasting of New Chinatown and other developments’ ‘enormous potential for additional phases and creating a destination of international scale and appeal’.
Two years later, the company overseeing the buyer-funded developments was insolvent and its building sites abandoned, ransacked and reduced to fly-tipping hotspots.
Some £40 million was owed to creditors when the projects associated with NPG and its subsidiaries collapsed, and has never been repaid.
This followed shortly after the Liverpudlian was named in criminal proceedings against brothers Stephen and Peter Clarke, convicted drug dealers and notorious underworld figures in North West England, as well as a third dealer, Anthony Quigley.
A detective described McInnes as being ‘possibly involved’ in laundering money on their behalf, using front companies that were rapidly shut down before accounts could be scrutinised – though he was never charged.
McInnes was also never officially listed as a director or owner of NPG, despite marketing materials naming his a chairman of the company and his public promotion of their developments, according to The Times.
He has strenuously denied all allegations against him and pointed out in a statement to the Liverpool Echo that the Serious Fraud Office had discontinued an investigation into two of NPG’s developments due to ‘insufficient evidence’.
A representative of McInnes told The Times in relation to his alleged involvement in NPG: ‘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.’
Liverpool City Council bought back the building site from administrators for £10 million in 2024 – almost a decade after awarding NPG the right to build over other trusted developers.
After months of silence on social media, McInnes this month re-emerged in Dubai.
He appeared in videos posted by Wonderwall Fine Arts – a company that claims to be selling genuine Banksy prints, including a print of the ‘Liverpool Rat’ – and is headed up by McInnes’ partner, Kimberely McMahon, according to the Liverpool Post.
