Legal
Fraudster Sentenced To Seven Years For £22 Million Investment Scam
A financial trader has been sentenced to seven years in jail for defrauding investors of nearly £22 million.
A financial trader has been sentenced to seven years in jail for defrauding investors of nearly £22 million ($35.1 million).
Benjamin Wilson, of Bournemouth, Dorset was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court in London, following previous guilty pleas for fraud, forgery and operating a collective investment scheme without authorisation.
Wilson was prosecuted by the Financial Conduct Authority in December 2013 after it was found that the unauthorised investment firm he ran, SureInvestment, was a sham, costing investors millions which were used to fund Wilson’s extravagant lifestyle.
In total, over 300 investors trusted Wilson with £21.8 million. When the scam was closed down by the FCA, £17.54 million was owed to investors and it is estimated that £5.39 million in total will be recovered, the regulator said.
The regulator said that despite claiming to his investors that he had set up overseas, Wilson instead placed the money in his personal SureInvestment UK bank account. Only 20 per cent of the total money that investors gave him between 2003 and 2010 was ever traded and when Wilson did trade, he invariably lost money.
SureInvestment was set up in 2003 when Wilson was 24 years old. The FCA said that he grossly exaggerated claims of both his trading abilities and of how much money and returns SureInvestment was making.
The sentence included seven years for fraud, and two and four years for the counts of forgery, with the terms to run concurrently.
This is longest sentence for anyone prosecuted by the Financial Conduct Authority and the second longest under either the FCA or its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority.
“Wilson used his charm and the trappings of apparent success to lure investors. However, his firm was almost as fictitious as his claims to genius. It was little more than a charade acted out at the expense of those who trusted and believed in him. There was only one beneficiary of the scheme and that was Wilson himself," said Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement and financial crime at the FCA.