F-ing hilarious. That saga is funnier then the BS a friend of mine experienced in Gibraltar. Some clown was recruiting prop traders from the local trading firms for his startup HF. Instead of targeting experienced traders, he was targeting "up and coming" traders. His selling point was that he was backed by VDM. It took the guy something like a year of dealing with the regulators before they would sign off on his DD - the fact that they did says s/thing about their standards. After VDM quietly exited and the guy was unable to raise money himself, he sent all of his recruits the new business plan - pay him GBP 30,000 to set up a hedge fund, recruit your own money and maybe he would match the funds at some point. LMAO when my friend told me what happened. In the end the recruits only lost time and not money. I am never surprised the lengths people will go to massage their egos.
PS Given what I have heard about Gib, I would just stay away from deals that are based there.