Tanya Dick-Stock: Looted Trust, Maxwell-Epstein Ties, $15B Suit

The Tanya Dick-Stock lawsuit is a $15 billion federal case filed in Colorado in December 2025, in which the Canadian-American heiress accuses Barclays, HSBC, and the Jersey-based trust company Zedra of helping her late father, John Dick Sr., drain hundreds of millions of dollars from trusts set up for her benefit. An amended complaint filed in June 2026 raised the damages figure from an original $12 billion and tied the alleged scheme to Kevin and Ian Maxwell, the brothers of Ghislaine Maxwell, whose family firm the suit says worked with the same Jersey trust company at the center of the fraud.¹

The Heiress and the Trust

Tanya Dick-Stock is the daughter of John Dick Sr., a Canadian-born lawyer and real estate developer who built a fortune in Colorado and later held the title of Seigneur of St. John on the island of Jersey, where he lived at a 600-year-old estate called St. John’s Manor. He died in California at 85.²

The trust at the center of the case was created in 1984 as part of John Dick Sr.’s divorce from his wife, Mary. It held Denver real estate and was valued at roughly $350 million. Its governing documents included two safeguards that matter to the lawsuit: any successor trustee had to be a U.S.-regulated bank or trust company, and John Dick Sr. was expressly barred from being a beneficiary.³

What the Lawsuit Alleges

The complaint focuses on what happened in 1995, when co-trustees Barclays Bank PLC and Barclays Trust International resigned and appointed a Jersey firm called La Hougue as the successor. La Hougue was headquartered at John Dick Sr.’s estate, and the lawsuit describes it as her father’s “alter-ego.” Because La Hougue was not a U.S.-regulated bank or trust company, Dick-Stock argues the appointment was void from the start under a Jersey-law doctrine known as “fraud on a power,” meaning Barclays never legally resigned and still bears trustee liability for everything that followed.³

With La Hougue installed, the complaint alleges a decades-long pattern of fake loans, forged loan agreements, backdated documents, and commingled trust accounts used to move money to John Dick Sr. and others rather than to the intended beneficiary. The Institutional Investor described La Hougue as a “massive fraud machine” that relied on dummy accounts, fabricated debt, bogus client names, and forged documents to drain the family trusts.⁴

HSBC’s alleged role is more specific. Richard Wigley, La Hougue’s managing director, admitted in U.S. court proceedings that he gave HSBC false information to secure a £6.5 million loan in 2012, saying John Dick Sr. told him to do “what was necessary.” A U.S. court later found the documents used to justify repayment were forged, and St. John’s Manor itself was eventually sold to repay the loan. Starting in May 2015, Dick-Stock’s accountants and her husband presented HSBC with evidence of potential fraud; according to reporting by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, HSBC declined to investigate, saying it would correspond only with its clients, the trustees.⁵

How the Evidence Surfaced

The case exists because of a chance discovery. In 2012, while preparing for their wedding at St. John’s Manor, Tanya Dick-Stock and her husband, Darrin Stock, found roughly 350,000 documents packed into more than 330 banker boxes in a locked, disused squash court on the estate. The files belonged to La Hougue and included forged loan agreements, wire transfer confirmations, internal memos and emails, and records describing how the firm helped clients evade taxes.³

Internal La Hougue memos instructed staff on how to make convincing forgeries, telling them to use old printers, old paper, and old pens so documents would appear years old. Wigley later admitted in U.S. court to fabricating multi-million-dollar loan documents, was sanctioned for perjury, and in 2016 a U.S. court described the violations by La Hougue’s former trustees as “truly egregious.”⁶⁴

La Hougue relocated to Panama around 2008 and rebranded as Pantrust International. In December 2014, Panama’s banking superintendent revoked its license, citing “harmful” operations and a Ponzi scheme involving fake accounts. Wigley then moved operations to the British Virgin Islands.⁷

The Maxwell and Epstein Connections

The amended complaint filed in June 2026 alleges that through the mid-1990s, La Hougue “moved money, established shell companies, and engaged in financial schemes” with Kevin and Ian Maxwell, the brothers of Ghislaine Maxwell and sons of the late media baron Robert Maxwell.¹

Leaked La Hougue documents examined by investigative journalists showed Kevin and Ian Maxwell used the firm to manage business and finances from at least 1997 through 2008. The brothers allegedly used La Hougue to secretly sell stock in Telemonde, a telecommunications company they co-founded, moving 208,000 shares for nearly $1.4 million in a single week in June 1999. Transactions were routed through shell companies and labeled as “loans,” with notes indicating a deliberate effort to stay below the 5% ownership threshold that triggers mandatory SEC reporting. The SEC revoked Telemonde’s registration in 2005 for “egregious” failures to file public reports.⁸⁹

The Maxwell brothers told reporters they had no “unaided recollection” of La Hougue, though Ian Maxwell acknowledged “dealings” with George Devlin, a private investigator who facilitated many of the transactions in the files.⁸

Senator Ron Wyden, working through the U.S. Senate Finance Committee’s investigation into how Jeffrey Epstein financed his sex trafficking ring, listed La Hougue as number 20 on a list of 58 individuals and entities with documented ties to Epstein, and has called on the Treasury Department to release files on the firm. Dick-Stock has said names in the St. John’s Manor documents also appear in Epstein-related inquiries, though the specific La Hougue-Epstein financial relationship has not been detailed in public filings. Jersey’s External Relations Minister, Deputy Ian Gorst, has confirmed the island’s government is monitoring both the U.S. civil suit and the Senate reports.³¹⁰

The Legal Claims and Damages

Dick-Stock and Darrin Stock filed suit on December 5, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The defendants are Barclays Bank PLC, Barclays Trust International, HSBC Holdings PLC, HSBC Bank USA, HSBC Private Bank (Jersey) Limited, Zahed Trust Company Limited (doing business as Zedra), and Zedra Holdings (US) Inc. The couple is represented by former U.S. Senator John Edwards through his firm Edwards Kirby LLP.¹¹

The complaint pleads two theories. The first is breach of trust: because La Hougue’s appointment was a fraud on a power and void from inception, Barclays and Barclays Trust International never legally resigned and remain responsible for the losses that followed. Under Jersey law, there is no statute of limitations for claims involving fraud or the recovery of trust property from a trustee. The second is dishonest assistance, a common-law tort that requires proof the banks knew of the breach and helped carry it out.³

The original complaint sought $12 billion. The June 2026 amended complaint raised that to $15 billion, incorporating additional interest and damages. It described the alleged fraud as “larger than previously known” and characterized the banks, their subsidiaries, and Zedra as “a whole range of enablers acting together in extraordinary ways” who “tricked creditors, avoided taxes and hid cash.” It accused them of accepting coded accounts, bypassing know-your-customer obligations, moving funds without contemporaneous documentation, and processing transactions whose true economic substance was deliberately obscured.¹

What the Defendants Say, and What Jersey Did

HSBC has denied the allegations, saying it “operates a robust financial crime compliance program with industry leading controls.” Barclays has declined to comment, and the trust companies have not returned requests for comment.¹ John Dick Sr. denied wrongdoing during his lifetime, saying through a spokesperson that he had “no oversight or involvement in the day-to-day operations of La Hougue” and was himself a victim of fraud by the firm’s staff.⁴

Jersey authorities examined the underlying conduct and closed their inquiries without charges. Police seized the banker boxes in March 2015 under an investigation called Operation Scarlet, but the probe produced no criminal charges, prosecutions, or regulatory penalties. An anonymous officer told reporters that Jersey’s attorney general declined to devote resources to it, citing a lack of “public interest,” and the Jersey Financial Services Commission called the matter a “civil dispute over the operation of a family trust.” Police later handed most of the documents to Garfield-Bennett, a law firm that represented John Dick Sr., which has said it is keeping them locked in a safe indefinitely. Jersey’s financial crime unit revisited the concerns in 2019 and closed the matter that June, finding “no realistic prospect of a conviction.”⁴⁵

In February 2021, a Jersey court approved a decision by GB Trustees to exclude Dick-Stock as a beneficiary of two smaller family trusts, the Manor House Trust and the Russian Trust, which held between £3.5 million and £4 million in remaining assets. The court cited the wishes of her brother John William Dick II, potential litigation costs, and what it called Dick-Stock’s “unremitting hostility to the interests of the trusts.” She was also in contempt of court for failing to pay over £934,000 in court costs and more than £1 million in legal fees from earlier unsuccessful challenges.¹²

Where the Case Stands

As of mid-2026, the federal case is in its early stages. The amended complaint has been filed, the plaintiffs are awaiting responses from the defendants, and discovery and depositions are anticipated for the fall of 2026.¹

1
New York Post. Heiress Who Sued Barclays HSBC for Alleged Money Laundering With Ghislaine Maxwell Link Seeks $15B in Damages
2
Bailiwick Express. Former Seigneur of St John Passes Away in California
3
New York Post. Heiress Drops $12B Bombshell Says Big Banks Helped Dad Loot Her Trust
4
Institutional Investor. The Heiress, the Queen and the Trillion Dollar Tax Shelter
5
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. HSBC Ignored Jersey Fraud Warnings
6
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Lost Trust: Leaked Files Expose Jersey’s Inaction on Fraud Scandal
7
The Guardian. Jersey Dick Family Trouble in Paradise Offshore Trusts Court Battle
8
OCCRP. Jersey Tax Shelter Leak Exposes Wall Street Trading Activities of Ghislaine Maxwell’s Family
9
Miami Herald. La Hougue Files and the Maxwell Brothers
10
ITV News. The $12 Billion Lawsuit Linking Jersey Offshore Structures and Jeffrey Epstein
11
OffshoreAlert. Tanya Dick-Stock Et Al v. Barclays Bank Plc Et Al
12
Bailiwick Express. Daughter Excluded From Family Wealth After Accusing Former Seigneur of Fraud