"Tony Sets Sale", Sunday World
Guru’s Monte Carlo seminars cut in price by 66 per cent , by Nicola Tallant
MUCKY ‘Messiah’ Tony Quinn is going back to Monte Carlo in a desperate effort to lure followers to join him at a bargain basement price.
A year after the Sunday World tracked him down to the principality of Monaco, he is feverishly trying to gather a crowd to attend one of his mind-bending seminars with seats going for just €6,000 – an incredible 66 per cent reduction on his usual prices.
While thousands at home are struggling with mortgage and credit card debt, Quinn is still hoping that people will part with their hard-earned cash to spend time in his presence.
And as an added bonus, he is bringing his pal, millionaire Bill Hubner, who ‘will also be in Monte Carlo in July on his mega-yacht ‘The Mirage’.
Exile
Quinn has always loved Monte Carlo and calls it his “Toy Town”. For years he chose it as his summer destination to escape hurricane season in The Bahamas where he lives as a tax exile.
He has hosted his self-improvement seminars at the exclusive Meridien Hotel for almost a decade charging €18,500 for a basic two-week course and €63,000 for more devoted followers to study his ‘Connections’ courses.
Last year, the Sunday World tracked Quinn down to ‘Toy Town’, where he was parading his girlfriend, Eve, on his arm.
With his sun-bleached hair, white shorts and young blonde lover, Quinn looked like most of the other super-rich playboys who flash their wealth in Lamborghinis, Jaguars, Bentleys and Rolls Royces along the exclusive stretch of France’s Riviera. He has amassed a staggering wealth – but, unlike other Monte Carlo millionaires his has come from devotees to his Educo cult who have pumped millions into his off-shore accounts believing him to be the Messiah.
Sources say that since the recession Educo, like many other businesses, is suffering from a new-found caution with money. He has had to reduce his prices for his seminars and has seen the numbers attending fall dramatically.
“This is a real face-saving thing,” a source said. “Those around him want to make him think that he is as popular as ever and hope that by offering such cut-price costs of the seminars that they will get loads going. But it is still slow. People are more cautious with their money and there has been a lot of negative publicity about Quinn which has had a dramatic effect on his business.”
Earlier this month Quinn’s personal secretary sent out letters inviting former devotees to attend the Monte Carlo seminar which she cited as a “new, super clear, step by step approach to changing your past, your present and future”.
Quinn has often earned more than €1 million for four weeks’ work in Monte Carlo before before heading back to his exclusive home on Ham Haugh Island on the Thames in London. But this year he will earn nothing like that due to the price slash. From London he routinely travels to Dublin to host a day-long free seminar exclusively for those who have already attended one of his courses in a bid to encourage them to part with more money to for another.
Entourage
Then the tax exile usually jets back to the Bahamas where he is based on Paradise Island before returning to Ireland for Christmas.
Quinn is in Monte Carlo with his usual entourage of Eve, whose real name is Emelie Hattingh, secretary Mary Power and sidekick Jim Fitzgerald, who films and catalogues every word of ‘wisdom’ that comes from the guru’s mouth.
He doesn’t stay at the Meriden, with his followers, as he doesn’t like to socialise with clients and instead takes an apartment at the nearby five-star Fairmont Hotel, where rooms cost up to €1,000 a night.
He often spends his evenings around Monaco’s flash Casino area, parading his leggy South African girlfriend around roulette tables.
In outlandish claims, Quinn says those who have studied his Educo mind and body science by attending his seminars increase their earnings by 264 per cent within three years, while business owners will increase their turnover by 360 per cent in the same time.
And for the sceptics out there – he claims that if you are not trained by him you have less than a one in 1,000 per cent chance of making a similar success of your life.
Article sourced from Dialogue Ireland