back to article Sage Business School founder imprisoned – but you wouldn't know it

Contractors working for jailed motivational speaker Peter Sage, who is accused by Hewlett Packard Enterprise of masterminding a $17.5m fraud against them, had to read The Register to figure out what had happened to their boss. In a conference live-streamed to a Facebook group last Thursday – the video of which was deleted over …

  1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    I'm still wondering how he managed to transfer >£100k out of the country whilst the raid was being carried out. Did nobody think it might have been a good idea to keep an eye on what he was doing?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      On his phone in the khazi?

      I've never had my house raided by police, but you'd imagine they would at least tap you down for your phone before letting you go to the bog though.

      1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

        The details are at paragraphs 11 and 61-70 of the judgement linked towards the end of the story. His fiancee, Thea Thorpe, left the house between 1pm and 2pm during the search on the grounds she had a pre-arranged lunch meeting. During that time, someone moved the money. The judge did not make an explicit finding as to whether Sage himself or Thorpe moved it but ruled that Sage was responsible.

        There is more to come on this saga. It's absolutely fascinating for a whole host of reasons.

        1. 2460 Something

          If has been successfully swindling for that long though, you would have expected that there would already been an offshore nest-egg set-up. Unless he never expected to get caught?

          1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

            "Unless he never expected to get caught?"

            I guess so. I'd say there was a point when he started to believe his own bullshit and from then on was sure that he was so much smarter than everybody else. Happens all the time.

            1. tr1ck5t3r

              @allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

              Sock puppet preplanned conversation.

              Just another example of the corporate fascist world we live in, easily passed off as a coincidental conversation depending on how much you analyse the text output on websites.

              Psychological training with thumbs up and thumbs down facilities, after all when you control the DNS you control what version of the internet you see.

        2. Roland6 Silver badge

          @gazthejourno

          Re: "There is more to come on this saga. It's absolutely fascinating for a whole host of reasons."

          Agree, I like the 'casual' comment in the current article: "HPE alleges he obtained “substantial ‘Big Deal’ discounts” from them which he was not entitled to."

          This would seem to imply that Sage was able to simply enter a promo code at HPE's web checkout - obtained from Vouchercloud? :) to obtain a substantial discount. ie. no one at HPE admits to either granting Space Energy the discount or confirming the order(s) carrying the discount - which would suggest the HPE's sales order processing and approvals system is woefully inadequate... Either that or someone in HPE is trying to cover their arse and not admit to lapses of judgement...

          Given the amounts involved here, I'm a little surprised we haven't seen HPE use similar harassment tactics against the former Autonomy Directors...

          Also given what is happening at CSC, I wonder if HPE will decide that the blood letting was only required because the ex-CSC directors miss represented the business to them...

    2. tr1ck5t3r
      Trollface

      Alexa, Action emergency protocol 101.

      Better still, how about program your AI to carry out actions when it hears, "Police, freeze, you are under arrest".

      Just make sure your smart phone can hear things when out and about, and your AI at home can hear the door being busted down.

      Technically & legally, if the Police trigger the moving of funds, where does the law stand on that point?

      Could it be viewed as a premeditated action if it can be proved an AI was preprogrammed by its user, a bit like a booby trapped front door or something else?

      What if its a survival algo built into the AI in order to protect its existence with its existing user?

      1. phuzz Silver badge
        Coat

        So being the leet hax0r you are, you set up Alexa to wipe all your harddrives and begin transferring your bitcoins to random wallets as soon as it hears "Police! Freeze!". Happy with a job well done, you settle down to watch TV. "Oh", you think, "The Bill is on, that'll do".

        What could possibly go wrong?

        (I was going to find a clip of The Bill where someone shouts "Police! Freeze!" but I can't be bothered)

        1. tr1ck5t3r
          Coat

          @phuzz Obviously, you would expect/program Alexa or whatever AI to ignore any Radio or TV programs anyway, otherwise how many cups of tea do you want when watching EastEnder or Corrie?

          As for Bitcoins, I wouldn't touch that with a barge pole, no privacy, besides to a certain extent all currency is backed up by violence metered out by the police & military, plus why make Satoshi a king maker with all those coins, Satoshi is just another example of clever people setting the rules to benefit themselves, whilst everyone else gets a crap education. You are set up to fail whether you realise it or not.

          @mongo. And you think the police are honest? Just watch any TV police reality show, and watch and listen to what they say. Or take a look at this list from around the world which is stuff the police have not been able to cover up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_corruption

          And that's before you even get into a debate over the fact this country keeps adding new laws because it ultimately helps to farm compliant conformists.

          When a cow gives birth to a calf, its got a couple days to be with it. When the farmer takes the calf away, the cow usually gets up and re-joins the herd, but some cows never get over the loss of the calf by re-joining the herd so the farmer puts it out of its misery and shoots it dead. Cant have it affecting the rest of the herd can we?

          Theres not much difference with human society. The only difference with human society is you are taught to believe experts and put your trust in experts who think they know best and whilst they might solve one problem, as is so often the case theres usually tradeoffs or side effects when it comes to medicine. None of them can see the bigger picture. Ask someone something outside of their domain of knowledge, most people will simply say don't know and not think any more about it, few go off to form their own opinion or experience it in a bid to understand. Who would you rather put your life in the hands of?

          Euthanasia is illegal in this country because its profitable to experiment on people in their time of need beit the NHS, Religious people or do gooders.

          If you think its acceptable to tell "white" lies to your kids because you don't want to pop their bubble, now you know why the Govt does the same to adults. The spook Walt Disney knew a thing or two about manipulating people psychologically.

          Theres no difference between representative democracy or facism, they both make the rules up as they go along. Representative democracy is a woolly term for sheeple to not think about the parallels with facism. Nationalism is like being born into a team that you have little say over unless you are allowed to leave. Globalists play countries off against one another.

          Judges are dictatorial enforcers of law, just like GP's are govt approved drug dealers.

          You can never trust a Govt that operates in secret. Dual use all the way.

          If monopolies are bad, why is there ever only one Govt in a country?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "(I was going to find a clip of The Bill where someone shouts "Police! Freeze!" but I can't be bothered)"

          It's more likely that the OP remembered that line being used in "Hackers", since I'm guessing he picked up his "hacking" "knowledge" from repeated viewings of that "classic" film. ;-)

          (Note: *After* writing the above, I noted that the original author's name is "tr1ck5t3r", which couldn't be more appropriate for a wannabe hacker. (^_^) Not to mention dated... 13375p34k has been pretty much dead- or at least passé- for the better part of a decade.)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Boobytraps...

        As a moment's thought might suggest, pretending it's the victim's fault because they triggered it is about as convincing as a bully slapping someone with their own seized hand while shouting "why are you hitting yourself!?" . So yep, the fund transfer will still be culpable and for bonus marks you've clearly established pre-meditation, much harder to argue it's a one-off atypical moment-of-panic deed.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Boobytraps...

          However the question stands. Why are you hitting yourself?

          ( I do wonder why crims don't keep a lot of their money offshore. This guy clearly had somewhere abroad to send it - why not keep it there? )

  2. Mephistro
    Trollface

    WOW!

    Very motivational!

    Much proactive!

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: WOW!

      Carpe diem!

  3. DNTP

    You say "term of imprisonment..."

    I call it a creative incubation sabbatical, fully funded through certain agencies of the government with an interest towards improving general public morality and responsibility.

    Also I misread the name of the refund representative as Noorah Naked and that peaked my interest.

    1. The_Idiot

      Re: You say "term of imprisonment..."

      Hmmm. 'Peaked' or 'piqued'? I'm pretty sure this is a context where either/ both could apply, grammatically or practically :-).

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hmm

    Looks like he followed every part of the Trump University business plan except for that crucial last step of getting yourself elected leader of the free world so you can tell everyone to just forget about it.

  5. Mark 85

    Is this a cult or what? From the actions and personalities... it sure does seem like a cult. Or maybe it's just greed and fleecing of the innocent.... ?

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Not mutually exclusive. The cult of fleecing the innocent... Scientology*, anyone?

      * Just an example. Schemes like that come in many, many incarnations. There's probably a new one every day.

  6. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Autonomous Community of Murcia in Spain

    ... and of course I read that as "Autonomous Community of 'Murica in Spain" first and was confused until I realised it's Murcia ...

    1. Mephistro
      Coat

      Re: Autonomous Community of Murcia in Spain (@ allthecoolshortnamesweretaken)

      Yeah, it's that place that was invaded by the Vikings, you know, the one where the queen was a total slut...

  7. Commswonk

    Are you *sure* about that?

    lawyers appointed by HPE carried out a dawn raid on his Leicester home

    Sorry but that simply doesn't sound right. If HPE were a party to any court action I cannot see lawyers appointed by them being allowed to mount a raid; even the Court Judgement used the word "search".

    If a Court mandated a search surely it would be carried out by people appointed by the Court

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Are you *sure* about that?

      If a Court mandated a search surely it would be carried out by people appointed by the Court

      There seems to be several threads to this:

      Firstly, his only actual crimes - as opposed to alleged crimes, was the committing of several deliberate contempts of a UK court.

      However, on a previosu thread ( https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/02/peter_sage_jailed_contempt_court_hpe_litigation/ ) it was stated that HPE had gained a freezing order and a house search order, which allowed them to appoint their own search agent.

      What is also interesting about this case, is that it would seem the case is about a Dubai registered company and hence the raises the question as to the extent the UK courts actually have jurisdiction...

  8. Aaiieeee
    Thumb Down

    Millionaire Business School??

    The subtle emotional/greed hook that suggests you will become a millionaire by attending this course. Emotive branding should be avoided; after all, if it was a quality course why would they need to pander to our subconsious desires?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I hope Thyme is okay with this

    I guess you could say that Sage is...

    (sunglasses)

    ...doing Thyme.

    YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

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    Anonymous Coward

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