Two men jailed for serious fraud over boiler room scam
23 Jul 2010
Two men have been sent to prison for seven years each after they
were found to have orchestrated an illegal share-pushing boiler
room operation.
David Vidgeon and Rahul Patel ran their scam between 2003 and 2006
from call centres in Spain and persuaded UK investors to purchase
more than GBP 7 million of fake shares.
However, they siphoned off some 80 per cent of the investors' funds
to pay for lavish lifestyles for themselves.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) began an
investigation in
2005 in conjunction with police in Spain, Norfolk and Suffolk and
eventually tracked the fraudsters down via banks in Latvia, Spain
and Cyprus.
Mr Vidgeon and Mr Patel were both found guilty of conspiracy to
defraud contrary to Common Law and were sentenced yesterday (July
22nd 2010) at Ipswich Crown Court.
Three other men under investigation - Baldur Sigurdsson, Roland
Pibworth and Craig John Clark - were all acquitted.
SFO director Richard Alderman commented: "A boiler room is a
predatory and orchestrated attack on private investors so it's very
satisfying to see justice delivered for such callous
dishonesty."
He added that members of the public should take heed of the warning
and avoid unsolicited investment offers.
Boiler room scams operate outside UK shores so people who are
conned by them are out of the jurisdiction of the Financial
Services Compensation Scheme, which covers only investors in UK
firms that go into liquidation.
Each person who is duped by the scams loses an average of GBP
20,000.
In May, the SFO issued a warning after uncovering another
fraudulent boiler room scam affecting the UK and said investors
should be vigilant against investment schemes which seem too good
to be true.
