UK 05:55 Tuesday, 6 October 2026
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Disclosure: I own shares in one or more of the stocks mentioned. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
We should be grateful to convicted armed robber Daniel Levi. Really we should, for he has proven, in the most graphic manner possible, so much of what is wrong with AIM. Formerly known as David John Hopkins, Levi has spent sixteen years in jail for two separate convictions involving firearms. There is no indication that either conviction is spent. It will now be a source of major embarrassment both to the London Stock Exchange and the Financial Conduct Authority that a man with Levi’s background was able to become Executive Chairman of Sefton Resources (SER), without anyone picking up on his criminal past.
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Comments
Dr Spock
You’re late to the party. It was released 3 days ago. http://guerillainvesting.co.uk/2015/07/25/daniel-levi-exposes-daniel-levi/
BMD peed on your fire. Got to give Dan respect. He always beats you down Ben.
turbograndad
Well whater ya know, why am I not surprised, why am I becoming so blase’ in this snake pit, Ah perhaps I’ve become like everyone else, esp the regulators.
You see when your dealing with it all the time as elsewhere, this is what happens, what is regulation anyway?????, answers please.
Trust no one, and no thing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
purple11
a blow to aim reputation
whats a bucketshop shrill got to do with AIM reputation?
wasn’t even what you could call a promoter.merely a tinpot cheap sex line operator. you really should learn to do damage limitation more subtlely!
you make yourself look cheap(and your ‘mate’gullible)
although I guess pizza is cheap. Adios!
some ppl have Proven Trading Histories!
I still have the emails when he threatened me 2 yrs ago.nasty little man.
wouldn’t you be wiser to withdraw and go abit quitter if youre trying to distance?
THE TAKEN
purple11
its just all so tacky…..and gooey…..and crappy……..
why don’t you get some proper traders writing for you…?
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
DUCK AND DIVE
Thank goodness for some sanity, Ben. TW playing the good cop was nauseating. If, as seems likely, Levi/Hopkins has committed a corporate crime by passing himself off as a fit and proper person to hold a regulated office then retribution must come.
His weekend “confession” was clearly not prompted by saintliness. The excellent detective work carried out by you and The Times leading to today’s exposé obviously backed him into a corner and forced him to come clean – albeit in a typically dishonest manner since he gave no hint of the media spotlight he was under.
By exposing this inveterate criminal, you have done the investing community a great service and imho ShareProphets is lucky to have you.
TROYSKA
What bothers me here Turney is the obvious pleasure you take in this ‘expose’. Very un christian.
Dan is a guy who clearly had a bad past, tried to move on and found himself caught between a rock and a hard place.
He chose to ‘blag it’ to protect his past from mud slingers. This was legally wrong.
I make no excuses for this, but this is clearly a case where a man with a very poor past has had the sense to try to turn his life round. Hoards of small minded members of the Chatterati take delight in this and enjoy the obvious discomfort he is suffering.
Let the guy try to build his life back from the car crash of his younger years. He did do wrong by not disclosing but who can blame him when there are so many petty minded pedantic witterers who take delight in others discomfort?
Be careful Ben……you are throwing stones……what’s your house made of?
purple11
each trying to make out they didn’t work with the other!
what a farce……look back at this sites history…they couldn’t get enough of eachother a while ago! along with that wally chris oil or whatever he calls himself. bunch of complete wannabees
what a wasted opportunity
you have some traffic from the sheep
USE IT and get some proper writer and MAKE SOMETHING OF IT!!!!!
Adios!
Ben Turney
@Dr Spock – only after he was called by The Times on Friday.
@Turbo – hard to disagree
@Purple11 – please do suggest some “proper traders” who could write for us
@Duck and Dive – Thank you
@Troyska – I am all for repentance, but to be truly forgiven someone first has to seek forgiveness. This isn’t sophistry, I truly believe that. Had Levi not compounded this story by lying about it on Saturday, the tone of the discussion this week would have been very different. To make amends he now has to find it within himself to be honest.
TROYSKA
@Ben Turney – nearly. Where I come from your EARN forgiveness, you don’t ask for it and you don’t expect it. I know you and Dan have issues but for christs sake the guy is trying to turn his life round from car crash to something meaningful – stop being so pleased about it.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to drag yourself up in Mosside or wherever the hell he’s from? there is no University or A’ Levels for them, no jobs beyond minimum wage, no internships unless it’s with ‘the firm’ or selling Smack. He followed the obvious route, realised his terrible mistakes and had tried to turn his life round.
The directorship name thing is a consequence of his past mistakes and against the rules, but can you really blame him? he was going places, making things happen, honestly would have cost an opportunity of a lifetime.
He has fought many many good fights, stuck his neck out for the right reasons, taken risks with everything he has but that means nothing it seems as most people delight in trashing people because of their past, as unpleasant as it may be.
If he’d been honest up front – he’d have been vilified and mocked, plus possibly in danger from past associates.
He chose to conceal, and is vilified and mocked, plus… etc etc
or he could have sat down and done nowt, like the rest of us and thought ‘i could have made a difference’.
Tough call I am sure you agree?
Whatever your dispute is – you did some good journalism (can’t be denied), and BMD would have done the same. But you are taking personal pleasure from causing this man distress. That is not a pretty sight.
He is, whatever you may think, a good financial investigator as well, and writes well. he has skills you do not – as the Sefton debacle proved. He would be an asset to ShareProphets – I vote an olive branch is extended and you get him on team if he wants it. Seems like the grown up, decent, thing to do?
DUCK AND DIVE
FFS, don’t give Hopkins a platform here. Apart from the times he gets a hyperlink from here, no-one reads his incoherent, illiterate, psychopathic blog (check the stats) and that’s exactly how it should be. The day I see his by-line on ShareProphets, I will hang up my boots. We should be putting corporate criminals behind bars, not promoting them – and certainly not hobnobbing with them.
Ben Turney
@Troyska – Forgiveness is freely given. That is the point of it. It is not there to be earned. However for it to be meaningful it has to be wanted. He does not want it. He sees no reason why he needs to be forgiven. As far as he is concerned he has done nothing wrong.
I’d have had sympathy for Levi’s position if he hadn’t continued to lie and lie and lie. He had a chance on Saturday to come clean. He has chosen to forgo that.
As for Moss Side, I mentored a group of 5 teenagers there for 3 years. They were from the same background as Levi, but these kids didn’t let that shackle them. They worked hard and have mostly gone on to get university degrees. All this nonsense I’ve read that life deals hard cards is the last redoubt of an unrepentant convict. Yes, life does deal hard cards, but that is no excuse to become an armed robber and key member of a gang of violent drug smugglers.
All the people who are saying what a decent guy he is and how he deserves a second change have totally failed to take into account:
1) He had a second chance and went straight back to his old ways.
2) His victims. He was sent to lengthy custodial sentences to reflect the severity of his crimes. How many people have had to live with the consequences of his violence?
All of his apologists, you included, have completely failed to grasp how the justice system works. I am all for rehabilitation, but what he did was so serious his convictions can never be spent. Our justice system has ruled that he can never completely pay his debt to society. His behaviour since has confirmed this was the correct verdict.
The outpouring of hypocrisy I’m now witnessing in his defence makes me very sad. So what if people have been sucked into buying into a company because of his lies and manipulation?
That doesn’t excuse abandoning values or principles.
As for the good fights he’s fought, yes, that is true to a point, but he has also behaved in an entirely vile and underhand manner, not in keeping with someone who has truly embraced reform. Money has brought the worst out of him. It has corrupted again a once corrupt soul. Any path to redemption he might have been on disintegrated as soon as he got a taste of the “success” of AIM. As a result he has overreached, foolishly believing in his own hype.
I am taking no pleasure from this story. It disgusts me.
Despite this, perhaps he will find it within himself truly to come clean. If he does I will be the first to welcome that.
CPPH
Ben, once again I take my hat off to you. Top work.
What I find staggering is that knowing the size of the skeletons in that guys closet he continued to chuck the muck about like he did. Everyone under the sun was an F’in liar yet there he is with an alias over a fake name over a record as long as your arm!
He needs to quietly drift away (and take that odious twit Oil with him) as his credibility is on the floor. Never to be restored. Don’t get me wrong I am all for rehabilitation but his behaviour of late has been abhorrent and he has I believe been showing his true colours.