The week started with a lengthy post by Neo & Bee CEO Danny Brewster on a social media website in attempts to clear his name following the recent debacle surrounding his company.
Mr. Brewster mysteriously disappeared from Cyprus, the location of his business, leaving his team in the dark and allegedy unpaid.
In his post, Brewster says he was out of the country courting potential investors. He added that he’s remained outside of the country due to threats against his family and the fact he had to attend a funeral. Interestingly, he added that he thinks the entire situation can be resolved without him being in Cyprus at all, conveniently as police are interested in speaking to him regarding fraud allegations.
Brewster’s story seemingly satisfied nobody. Especially employees of the company.
Former COO George Papageorgiou and former Compliance and Risk Management Officer Øystein Aaby have taken to Reddit to release what they’re calling the “full picture”.
“Following the latest statement released by Danny Brewster, CEO of Neo & Bee Ltd, we, the personnel involved at an executive level within Neo and Bee, feel it is appropriate and justified to make the following statement regarding the mistruths and outright lies being fed to investors, creditors and the public. In the interests of preserving the potential that the company can be turned around, we had remained silent on the matter up to this point,” they said.
The two note that they were being fed lies by company management from the get-go:
“We were misled and the truth was obfuscated from us under so many layers, that combined with our workload, proved enough to allow the CEO to run rampant, without accountability and with full control of all the bitcoins, until it was too late.”
The statement speaks to great length over the confusion surrounding company funds and how they were spent. Intially responsible for raising 9,400 bitcoins, Brewster told a manager on his team they were down to 5,000 bitcoins on the 18th of March. The very next day (the 19th), Brewster informed the management team they were down to 140 bitcoins at a meeting.
Mr. Brewster proceeded to give a very rough and incoherent breakdown of where the funds had been spent. After revealing the lack of funds to his employees he went on to raise the possibility of selling more “profit shares” to increase liquidity. All employees sternly objected to this and the idea has since not been raised since. In defence of the sudden announcement on the 19th of March that the company only had 140 bitcoins remaining, Mr. Brewster stated in front of the same people that he had mis-accounted for 5000 of his own bitcoins, bitcoins he thought he owned but after “checking” a wallet, realised had actually spent them all.
Following this news, the staff made attempts to remove Brewster from his position on the 20th of March, and he agreed. It wasn’t long before he disappeared completely:
Mr. Brewster came to the office for one hour on Thursday the 20th and one hour on Friday the 21st. On Thursday the 20th it was made very clear to him that the whole of the management team wished Danny to be removed as the CEO. Danny agreed to step down after transferring control of the company to investors. He claimed he was flying to the UK to speak with investors the following week. After leaving on Monday the 24th, no one was able to get in contact with him until the 28th when he wrote to us that due to threats against his daughter’s life he should remain silent, and in England (despite his daughter being in Cyprus). The supposed threat email is dated 26th of March, while Mr. Brewster has been out of contact long before that. We mentioned this claimed threat to the local authorities here on the 28th as well, since any potential threat of any form should not be taken lightly. They said that this was the first time they heard of it, from us.
The employees Mr. Brewster’s claims that he hasn’t run off with company money:
Also, contrary to Mr. Brewster’s claims that he left the island with none of the company’s money, he did in fact and still does hold the company’s remaining 140 Bitcoins (if that’s what’s left).The 140 BTC were never delivered to cover any debt or running expenses despite him being asked and confirming this verbally to all present. His claim later on, was that his lawyer had advised him not to send the coins. To this day we can only assume he is still in possession of these remaining coins.
The statement notes that Brewster is also holding upwards of fifty bitcoins belonging to two employees, and more belonging to other individuals who have entrusted him to hang on to their holdings.
“We will remain in contact with the community and authorities to clear this situation out to its full extent. This was the doing of one person in full control of a business’ funds, not technology and certainly not Bitcoin’s. What we face, is in its core, a corporate governance failure, pervasive in conventional businesses even more often than it is in Bitcoin businesses,” they said. “Contrary to conventional businesses, where regulation is the only response, the tools are available here, to ensure in the future that these things don’t happen.”