Dragons’ Den star who founded £690million company ‘fled Russia after warlord death threat’

Nick Jenkins sits with a pen in his hand in a scene from Dragons' Den.
Dragons’ Den investor Nick Jenkins left the show in 2017 (Picture: BBC)

Former Dragons’ Den investor Nick Jenkins has said he left Russia in the wake of a death threat being posted to his door.

The man behind the ubiquitous Moonpig cards, 58, has spoken in a new podcast interview about a ‘ding dong’ he had with a Siberian warlord over several warehouses of sugar which mysteriously vanished.

Jenkins was a fearsome Dragon on the BBC One entrepreneurial show for seasons 13 and 14, before he announced he would be exiting the programme in 2017 to focus on his own businesses.

The greeting card company founder – who made six investments totalling £842,000 on Dragons’ Den – has now detailed the sticky situation of his youth, when a deal went sour.

‘I was quite young and it was the first time I ever had a death threat. To some extent you think that’s quite exciting,’ he laughed. ‘It’s a death threat. Never had one of those before. In your 40s you think, “Oh my god, it’s a death threat. That’s bad.”’

Speaking on the Micah McLean Talks podcast, he explained that he had been working for a ‘big’ commodity trading company at the time and was living in Russia.

LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 15: New Dragons Touker Suleyman (L) and Nick Jenkins attend the reinvention of Ghost on Kings Road hosted by Touker Suleyman on April 15, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by David M. Benett/Getty Images for Ghost)
Jenkins detailed his run-in with a Siberian warlord on a podcast (Picture: David M. Benett/Getty Images for Ghost)

‘The Russians in those days had the money to buy sugar in the street but there were no organisations that had enough money to buy a single cargo of sugar,’ he continued. 

‘So what we were doing was bringing sugar in from abroad and shipping it to warehouses that we rented and then allowing it to be released from those warehouses once we’d been paid.

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‘The problem was that somebody in Siberia who got about 10 of these warehouses and about $10 million worth of sugar just decided to help themself to it.’

Jenkins detailed how he met with the Siberian in question, who turned out to be ‘some sort of warlord’ and it resulted in the former Dragon having the person’s assets frozen in Switzerland, as you do.

‘We had a bit of a ding-dong and I got a death threat stuck to my front door,’ said Jenkins. ‘I left Russia about three months after that.’

Television Programme: Dragons' Den with Sarah Willingham, Touker Suleyman, Deborah Meaden, Nick Jenkins and Peter Jones. WARNING: Embargoed for publication until 00:00:01 on 27/06/2015 - - (C) BBC - Photographer: Andrew Farrington
Jenkins said he hasn’t lived in fear since the incident, but it was a ‘wake-up call’ (Picture: BBC/Andrew Farrington)

He added: ‘That wasn’t it wasn’t the only reason, but it was a little bit of motivation, I suppose.’

The death threat was handed over to the insurance company Jenkins’ company was dealing with over the theft of all that sugar.

He went on to clarify that the incident hadn’t been ‘traumatic’, but had been a ‘wake-up call’, explaining: ‘Russians were fairly logical about that sort of thing. They generally would threaten you if you stop doing it. 

‘At that point, I handed it over to the insurance underwriters, who took one look at it and just said, “No, let’s just write it off and walk away.” 

‘That was that. I haven’t walked around worrying that someone’s going to blow my car up ever since.’

Dragons’ Den continues on BBC One and is available to catch up on iPlayer.

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