Fraudsters jailed for £2m expat investment scam

A team of con men who scammed £1.93 million from smooth-talking financial advisors in to encouraging expat investors to put cash in to bogus funds have been jailed for fraud offences.

A judge at Worcester Crown Court jailed Peter Roope for to seven years, reduced to four years and eight months because of his early plea; Gareth Matthews was sentenced to six years, reduced to four years because of his plea.

Three other defendants, Charles Frisby, Douglas Miller and John Roope, were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud.

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on a sixth defendant, David Usher.

Frisby, who was based in Yorkshire and helped to set up the scam business, drafting business documents and marketing literature, was sentenced to four years and six months. He worked with Miller, of Nottinghamshire, who produced the group’s website and literature and was given a sentence of three years and six months.

John Roope, the twin brother of Peter Roope, who lived in Australia and promoted the group in Southeast Asia along with Matthews, was sentenced to two years.

The men, who operated under the name Prudential Commercial Investments, conned overseas independent financial advisers (IFAs) into persuading their clients to invest money in commercial property loans.

The victims were told their funds would be channelled into a lending scheme for commercial property buyers in Britain and that they would reap high returns.

But the fraudsters instead diverted the money into offshore bank accounts and used it for their personal benefit. In total, £1.93m was taken from 56 investors.
 
The fraudsters did not target consumers directly, but instead used slick sales material to target IFAs operating in the expat investment sector and then relied on them to pull in business from their established client base.

The fraudsters also offered IFAs commission of between 4% and 6%, and told them it had a five-year trading track record, worked with well-known and reputable service providers and had a £12.4m portfolio.