Three fraudsters have been jailed for a total of 15 years and nine months for carrying out a seven year £70m investment fraud which cheated more than 3,000 people, many of them pensioners, out of their savings.
Matthew Pickard, 56, Stephen Greenaway, 47 and Paul Laver, 47 from Bournemouth were sentenced this week at Southwark Crown Court for “orchestrating” the major fraud which hit thousands of savers.
The defendants splashed millions of pounds of stolen money on luxury lifestyles, including high-end sports cars and luxury holidays across Europe and Asia. Mr Greenaway purchased a £1.9m home while Mr Pickard bought a £4.3m property in Sandbanks, Poole.
Some £2.77 million of investor money was also diverted and used to administer a tax avoidance scheme for the directors' own benefit.
Mr Pickard was sentenced to six years in prison, Mr Greenaway to five years and three months and Mr Laver four years and six months. They were also disqualified as acting as directors for 10 years.
Southwark Crown Court heard that an SFO investigation into their company, Ethical Forestry Limited, revealed how the former directors ran a Bournemouth-based call centre to promote the scheme. The centre was used to cold-call members of the public and persuade them to withdraw and invest funds from their pension schemes into a tree-planting operation in Costa Rica.
SFO investigators found that employees of Ethical Forestry Limited used false company names without disclosing their true employer to “gain the trust of victims” before encouraging them to transfer their savings to the scheme.
While some trees were planted in Costa Rica using the funds, nothing was set aside to maintain or harvest the saplings. This meant investors' money could never generate the returns they had been promised, the SFO said.
The SFO's investigation led all three defendants to plead guilty to fraudulent trading in January earlier this year ahead of a scheduled trial.
Graham McNulty, director of the Serious Fraud Office, said: "These former directors preyed on people's good intentions to support a 'green' investment, stealing £70 million from hard-earned life savings and pensions.
“Our thorough investigation exposed this fraudulent scheme, and the strength of our evidence led us to secure three guilty pleas, resulting in today’s sentence. This is an important step towards justice."