JOHN BERNARD▊
There is no John Bernard. The billionaire Swiss investor who made his fortune in the dot-com boom, kept a Private Office, and stood ready to wire millions into your startup was, per a five-part KrebsOnSecurity investigation, John Clifton Davies — a U.K. con man who fled Britain in 2015 ahead of a 12-year fraud sentence for looting distressed companies through fake insolvency consulting. The new act was cleaner than the old one: promise a fat investment after a call or two, insist the deal be vetted by an independent Swiss due-diligence firm, collect tens of thousands in vetting fees — then walk. The independent Swiss firm was his. Dozens of startups, an estimated $30 million, and when Krebs unmasked him the persona didn't apologize; it announced, on its own website, that the fund was closing because it had reached its intended investment level. Then he changed names and did it again.
We are pleased to announce that we are currently closing The Private Office fund as we have reached our intended investment level and that we now plan to focus on helping those companies we have invested into to grow and succeed.
"The Private Office of John Bernard," the persona's own homepage — posted days after Krebs published the unmasking, as quoted by the reporter who did it. The intended investment level, per every broker Krebs interviewed, was zero.
- WHO
- John Clifton Davies — of Milton Keynes, England; a.k.a. "John Bernard," "Jonathan Bibi," "John Cavendish," "Alan John Mykhailov" (aliases per KrebsOnSecurity) ATTRIBUTED
- SCENE
- "The Private Office of John Bernard" — a self-described Swiss capital-investment firm listed on angel-investor directories, staffed largely from Ukraine, fronting for a due-diligence-fee machine
- THE DRAMA
- Promise millions, demand tens of thousands in up-front "due diligence" paid to The Inside Knowledge GmbH — a vetting firm he secretly owned — then pull out of every deal. An estimated $30 million from dozens of tech startups, per Krebs's series and the brokers and victims in it ATTRIBUTED
- RECORD
- Convicted in the U.K. in 2015 on multiple counts of fraud — more than £750,000 taken from struggling companies via unlicensed insolvency consulting — and sentenced to 12 years; he fled before the sentence could touch him. The "Bernard" scheme itself has never been charged FACT
- STATUS
- FUGITIVE, RE-SKINNING — last reported in Ukraine; last spotted (per Krebs, 2023) chairing a U.K. software company under a new name
Frank Abagnale forged a pilot's uniform; this file's subject forged an asset class. The "John Bernard" scheme is the con-artist arc in its purest modern form: a real conviction left behind in one country, a fictitious rich man assembled in another, and a fee machine so well designed the marks came to him — brokers hustled his portfolio to startups for a 5 percent finder's fee nobody ever collected, because no deal ever closed. Every beat below is from KrebsOnSecurity's five-part series (2020–2023) and the court outcomes, registrar filings, and victim accounts it documents.
the drama timeline
ACT I — THE INSOLVENCY DOCTOR (2004–2015)
A U.K. "consultant" cures troubled companies of their remaining money, and leaves the country before the bill comes due.
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2004–06
The honeymoon, and the acquittal that matters
Davies's third wife, Colette, dies in a fall from a viewing point above a gorge in Himachal Pradesh, India, during their honeymoon. After he attempts to collect a £132,000 life-insurance payout, he is charged with murder and fraud and held for 16 months — and then cleared: British prosecutors concede they do not have the evidence to convict him. On the death, the record says cleared, and so does this file.
-
2007–13
Insolvency "consulting," unlicensed
For roughly six years Davies runs a series of U.K. businesses claiming to provide insolvency consulting to distressed companies — a service he is not licensed to perform. Per the conviction that follows: he gains the firms' trust, takes control of their assets, and pockets more than £750,000 meant for creditors, spending it — in the words of a 2015 U.K. news report quoted by Krebs — on "a life of luxury," an upmarket home, a high-tech cinema system, a new kitchen. His fourth wife, Iryna, is listed as a director of one of the businesses.
-
2014–15
Convicted, sentenced to 12 years, and gone
Davies moves to Kyiv in 2014, his wife's hometown, per Ukrainian reporting cited by Krebs. In 2015 he is convicted in the U.K. on multiple counts of fraud and sentenced to 12 years — but he has already absconded. He has been a fugitive from British justice ever since. The insolvency doctor is dead; a billionaire is about to be born.
ACT II — THE BILLIONAIRE (c. 2016–2020)
A fictitious Swiss investor with a Private Office, a Ukrainian staff, and a due-diligence firm that always gets paid and never approves a deal.
-
c. 2016–20
The Private Office of John Bernard
"John Bernard" surfaces on angel-investor directories as a millionaire-to-billionaire Swiss investor who made his fortune in the dot-com boom. Per the brokers and victims Krebs interviews, the play never varies: after a call or two he promises to invest millions with little pushback, then insists the company pay tens of thousands of dollars in up-front due-diligence fees to a Swiss vetting firm, The Inside Knowledge GmbH — which, Krebs reports, Bernard secretly owns. Fee collected, Bernard pulls out. Brokers are baited with a 5 percent finder's fee no one ever collects, because no deal is ever consummated. Marks who ask why a Swiss firm's staff is all in Ukraine are told his wife is Ukrainian and they live near her family — the one detail in the pitch that appears to have been true.
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2018
The crew takes convictions; the boss takes a detour
Victims signing Bernard's paperwork deal with his "lawyer," a "Katherine Miller" — identified by Krebs, via U.K. Companies House records, as Moldovan ex-attorney Ecaterina "Katya" Dudorenko. In 2018 she and fellow Bernard-company director Sergey Pankov are convicted in the U.K. of cigarette smuggling — sentenced in absentia to two and a half years, having, like their boss, declined to attend. The same year, per Ukrainian reporting cited by Krebs, Ukrainian authorities detain Davies and the U.K. seeks extradition; he slips away again.
ACT III — THE UNMASKING (SEP–OCT 2020)
A reporter follows the paper trail from a Zoom screenshot to a Milton Keynes street address, and the billionaire's website announces victory on the way out.
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SEP 25, 2020
"John Bernard" meets John Clifton Davies
Krebs publishes the unmasking: a broker's Zoom screenshot of "Bernard" bears a striking resemblance to Davies's 2015 photo, and the paper trail does the rest — Davies's old Companies House address links to a domain registered to john888@myswissmail.ch; his wife Iryna directs a company at the same address; and The Inside Knowledge GmbH's Swiss-registered president matches an officer of that same U.K. company. Bernard and his firms do not respond to requests for comment. The U.K.'s National Crime Agency will "neither confirm nor deny" an investigation.
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SEP–OCT 2020
The fund "closes"; the staff evaporates
Within days of the story, employee profiles tied to Bernard's office scrub the firms from their LinkedIn résumés or delete themselves outright, and the-private-office.ch replaces its homepage with the announcement quoted at the top of this file: the fund is closing because it has "reached our intended investment level." Krebs's follow-up tallies the damage from more than a dozen victims and a broker who tracked the trail for years: dozens of companies, roughly $30 million in due-diligence fees, one company alone reportedly over $1 million. Incredibly, per Krebs, the crew keeps collecting installment payments from companies already in the pipeline even after the exposé runs — one victim issues a press release in August about the millions "Bernard" has promised it.
ACT IV — THE RE-SKINS (2021–2023)
Exposure changes nothing but the name on the door. Twice.
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MAY 7, 2021
Enter "John Cavendish"
Sources tell Krebs the operation has re-skinned as "John Cavendish" and a new private office, Hempton Business Management LLP. A broker who represented multiple fleeced clients recognizes the "unmistakable" British accent on a call — and reports that the man stumbles at the start, trying to remember which surname he is using that day. Krebs documents the overlaps: correspondence from a "Mariya Kulykova" (Bernard's Kyiv assistant was Mariya Kulikova), the same French domain registrar Bernard's phantom companies favored, and a corporate shell bought off the shelf. Hempton's stated owner denies everything — his reply is in the defense column below, and it's a keeper.
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JAN 29, 2022
The Norwegian shipping dream, sunk
Norwegian Business Daily journalists document Bernard's role in the collapse of a Norwegian green-shipping venture: posing as principal investor, he falsely claims a $99.25 million syndicate of wealthy co-investors — including Uber co-founder Garrett Camp and The Weeknd, neither of whom had anything to do with it — and an estimated $1.67 million paid over to him is lost. The founders had found him "credible and reliable." The wreckage ends where these things end: not with Bernard in a dock, but with two of his victims suing each other over who let it happen.
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APR 3, 2023
"Alan John Mykhailov" takes up coding
Krebs finds the trail again at CodesToYou LTD, a U.K. "full cycle software development company" chaired by one "Alan John Mykhailov" — an identity Krebs connects to Davies through Companies House and Swiss registrar records: Mykhailov's other company holds the decision-making role in The Inside Knowledge GmbH, now in liquidation, and the old crew's names recur on the staff page under light rebranding. The first product in CodesToYou's portfolio is "MySolve," a platform for insolvency practitioners. Eight years, four names, and the fugitive from a £750,000 insolvency fraud is back to selling insolvency — as software this time. The company says there is no connection; its denial is below.
both sides, on the record
The adjudicated record: a 2015 U.K. fraud conviction — more than £750,000 taken from distressed companies through unlicensed insolvency consulting — a 12-year sentence, and a fugitive who never served it. Two associates of the Bernard operation carry their own 2018 in-absentia U.K. smuggling convictions [1] [2] [5].
The documented pattern: five Krebs investigations across three years, more than a dozen victims and multiple brokers interviewed, a paper trail through U.K. and Swiss registrars tying the Bernard persona's companies to Davies's addresses, family, and associates — and the same due-diligence-fee mechanics recounted independently, case after case, to an estimated $30 million. When one identity burned, the reporting found the next one twice, staff and registrar habits intact [1] [2] [3] [5].
The Bernard scheme has never been charged: no arrest, indictment, or civil judgment against Davies over the "John Bernard" conduct has been reported. The identification of Bernard — and later Cavendish and Mykhailov — as Davies rests on Krebs's published evidence chain and his sources, not on any court finding. The NCA would neither confirm nor deny an investigation [1].
The denials, verbatim: Bernard's office never responded to Krebs's requests for comment. Hempton's stated owner, James Donohoe, wrote: "I have never had any dealings with a John Clifton Davies or John Bernard. You really are a cheeky little bugger aren't you!" CodesToYou's marketing staff maintained the company is a legitimate enterprise with no ties to Davies or Bernard [3] [5].
On the worst thing ever alleged of him, he was cleared: held 16 months on suspicion of murdering his third wife in India, Davies was released when prosecutors conceded they lacked the evidence. That is an acquittal in substance, and this file treats it as one [1].
YOU DECIDE
The insolvency fraud is adjudicated: convicted, sentenced to 12 years, never served. Everything after is the reporting of one very persistent journalist and the dozens of victims and brokers who told him the same story about the same fee machine — a case built in public, receipt by registrar receipt, against a man whose only rebuttals on the record are silence, someone else's "cheeky little bugger," and a website that closed a fake fund by declaring it a success. The con is not that startups were greedy; it's that they did everything right, insisted on due diligence — and he owned the due diligence.
The archive does not chase him. The archive keeps the fee invoices, the registrar filings — and the closing announcement.
evidence locker
PRIMARY / CONTEMPORANEOUS REPORTING
KrebsOnSecurity — "Who is Tech Investor John Bernard?" (Sep 2020) ATTRIBUTED — the unmasking: the Zoom screenshot, the Companies House / myswissmail.ch trail, the 2015 conviction backstory (FACT-grade as court outcome), the cleared murder charge, the homepage closing notice.
krebsonsecurity.com/2020/09/who-is-tech-investor-john-bernard/ KrebsOnSecurity — "A Serial Tech Investment Scammer Takes Up Coding?" (Apr 2023) ATTRIBUTED — the "Alan John Mykhailov" / CodesToYou re-skin: the Blackstone–Inside Knowledge registrar link, the recycled staff, the MySolve insolvency platform, the company's denial; the 12-year sentence figure (FACT-grade as court outcome).
krebsonsecurity.com/2023/04/a-serial-tech-investment-scammer-takes-up-coding/
CROSS-LINKS
troll.fan — Frank Abagnale CROSS-LINK — the other career impostor in the files: where Abagnale's legend outran his record, Bernard's record outran every legend he wore.
troll.fan/dossiers/frank-abagnale.html troll.fan — The Timeline CROSS-LINK — where the 2020–2023 unmasking beats sit in the scene's larger chronology.
troll.fan/timeline.html
The standard. John Clifton Davies's 2015 U.K. fraud conviction, the 12-year sentence, his flight, and his associates' 2018 smuggling convictions are court outcomes, reported with the underlying records. The identification of "John Bernard" — and later "John Cavendish" and "Alan John Mykhailov" — as Davies, and the $30 million due-diligence scheme, are attributed throughout to KrebsOnSecurity's five-part investigation and the brokers, victims, and registrar filings it documents; no court has adjudicated the Bernard scheme, and this file says so plainly. The murder charge he was cleared of is carried as the exculpatory fact it is. Every denial on the record is quoted at full strength. No motive beyond the documented conduct is asserted, and the fleeced companies appear only as their own lawsuits and statements made them public. If a line here couldn't survive scrutiny, it wouldn't be on the page.