Pancho Campo MW: a man with a conviction

Pancho Campo MW on the Interpol site

There is a delicious irony here. Spain was once a haven for the British criminal fraternity until the Spanish authorities clamped down. Now, however, Spanish wine appears to be welcoming a convicted fraudster with open arms. First with WineFuture Rioja09 followed by Vinoble 2010, the sweet wine festival held biannually in Jerez.

“We are awaiting the definitive legal response.”
But what legal response is this, pray? Pancho Campo was found guilty on 1^st June 2003 of breach of contract – fraud and sentenced a year in jail, followed by deportation.

Since the end of August PC has claimed to have a team of lawyers in Spain and Washington sorting this out. Are they appealing against the sentence? They originally claimed this was all a ghastly mistake? A miscarriage of justice! Perhaps, but so far not a shred of evidence, to show that this is the case.

Both the criminal and civil cases against Pancho Campo are over – apparently there are no new fresh cases listed, so where is the wriggle room for the lawyers and for Pancho?

Doubtless Pancho’s posse of lawyers are working to good purpose but the only thing I’m aware of them doing is to have threatened American wine writer, Gerry Dawes, for looking into Pancho and his Interpol Red Notice.

There is, of course, one definitive legal response: for Pancho Campo MW to return to Dubai to serve his one year prison sentence.

“He didn’t know about the case and was tried in absentia.”
How many people are charged in court with breach of faith involving a sum of 640,000€, surrender their passport presumably with their visa that allows them to work in the UAE, abscond from the country while awaiting trial and then forget all about the criminal charge until several years later when a red notice is issued by Interpol following a request from Dubai/United Arab Emirates? A parking ticket perhaps but a six figure fraud ...!

“It's a business dispute!”
True there was civil case as well brought by Jackie Wartanian, Pancho’s business partner in Dubai, through her lawyer – Amma Al Jallaf of Ince & Co (Dubai) – but the fraud conviction relates to a criminal charge.

“It all happened in another country … and has nothing to do with wine.”
This just doesn’t hold water. Pancho is still in the same line of business promoting events – this time it’s wine before, in Dubai, it was music and sports events. The only difference is that the egos of top music stars may be more fragile than those of wine industry luminaries.

Follow the money trail is an old adage: 2003 Pancho Campo absconds from Dubai, is convicted of a substantial fraud and sets up The Wine Academy of Spain. “No link with wine, here.” Really! Then why won't Pancho Campo MW answer the simple question – what was the source of the money used to set up The Wine Academy in 2003?

Furthermore I’ve seen enough of fraud trials in the UK to be aware that fraudsters have transferable skills.

Also Pancho has gone out of his way, when building brand Campo, to use some of his past – participant in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games (coach to the one strong Chilean women’s team), organiser of Dubai concerts for Pink Floyd (the band have never played Dubai/UAE), etc.

"This is just being stirred up by people, who don't like him or are jealous of his success."
This is just a smokescreen – a diversionary tactic. Pancho Campo MW may well have his enemies – successful, dynamic people often have their detractors. However, the conviction and jail sentence for fraud in Dubai isn't an invention nor is the possibility that The Wine Academy of Spain was wholly or, in part, founded on the proceeds of fraud. Pancho the solution to the speculation over the funding of the Academy is in your hands – answer the questions.

"It has all been got up by the foreign press."
Pancho Campo's conviction has had more coverage outside Spain but this is only because the quiescent Spain press have preferred to hold their noses, look the other way and peddle the transparent fiction that what happened in Dubai has nothing to do with wine in Spain.

•

I would have more sympathy with Pancho Campo if his claims weren’t such an elaborate confection of falsehoods and facts so elasticated that they often bear a similar relationship as that between a bubble car and a stretch limo.

In addition to Pink Floyd and 1992 Barcelona Olympics, claims about being ‘personally trained by Al Gore’ in climate change turn out to be far from a studious chat with the great man in a book-lined library but instead one of 200 or so people at a seminar in Seville. ‘Studied winemaking at the University of California at Davis’ – yes, two correspondence courses.

A doctor of medicine, as claimed on Pancho Campo's Wine Future presentation (in Spanish), pt 1 by Zev Robinson (http://vimeo.com/4858630) ("Como medico que soy. . ." 9.40 mins in). Pancho may have studied medicine in the Dominican Republic but there appears to be no record of him qualifying.