“The minute you’ve got something that’s popular the sharks are gong to start circling. They know there’s blood, they can smell it, and unfortunately in this particular case the blood is whisky.” Kenny Macdonald, Co-founder, Dram Mor Single Malt Scotch Whisky

These are the words of spoken by Kenny Macdonald at the start of the BBC documentary about the world of cask whisky investing, Disclosure: Hunting the Whisky Bandits.

It is a sorry tale which bears all the hallmarks of so many scams… At its heart lies an asset class that is completely unregulated, Scotch whisky.

The documentary is populated by a group of individuals that could have been drafted out of Central Casting for supporting roles in a Guy Ritchie movie. Not least among them a gentleman called Craig who changes his surname almost as often as I change my underpants.

These scams are sophisticated: built on the veneer of the need for specialist knowledge of the asset in which they deal, and doubtless enhanced by the allure of the prestige product.

There are beautiful looking websites featuring a compelling combination of breathtaking Scottish landscapes and smart-looking offices full of people apparently busy trading whisky casks for their clients. Except the latter were in fact all actors filmed in a hire-by-the hour office.

The actual money-making featured casks sold to clients at ten times their real value, casks sold to clients that were already owned by somebody else, and of course casks sold to clients that didn’t actually exist.

A then there are the victims. People who have invested thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands of pounds, who have ended up with no more than a series of pretty-looking ‘ownership’ certificates printed on thick A4 paper.

It would be easy to characterise these individuals as being both gullible and greedy. To say they should have done their research, seen the red flags and walked away. Easy but unfair in my opinion.

I am not embarrassed to admit I have been the victim of a scam: in my case it was a company purporting to be able to source me leads to grow my business when I was starting my SJP Practice.

Like the victims of the so-called Whisky Bandits I was seeking some financial gain, but without being greedy. I was also, arguably, vulnerable as I had the pressure of needing to build my client bank as quickly as possible.

Many of the victims featured in the documentary were elderly, some were sick, but none of them were obviously stupidly gullible, even if they were not sophisticated investors. Some even did their homework, checking out the firm they were dealing with at Companies House, for example.

Ultimately, therefore, I’m not sure there are any new lessons to be learned from Hunting The Whisky Bandits, but it serves as a timely reminder of one old adage… From casks to crypto and coins to other collectibles, if an investment looks too good to be true it probably is.