A Suffolk man has been handed a suspended prison sentence for his role in a £13m ‘Ponzi’ scheme.
Jeffrey Razaq, 60, of Gunton Cliff, Lowestoft received a twelve-month suspended sentence at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, July 26, after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to launder and acquiring criminal property.
Razaq was part of a group of fraudsters who pocketed over £13 million after running a ‘Ponzi’ property scheme in Essex, one of the largest of its kind, and defrauded over 800 investors through their company ‘Essex and London Properties Ltd’.
In 2015, a dormant property company was purchased and renamed Essex and London Properties Ltd (ELP).
It claimed to buy distressed properties along the new Cross Rail route, now called the Elizabeth Line, running from London to Essex, which would then be refurbished and re-sold at a profit.
In May 2017, Essex Police specialist fraud investigators began investigating ELP after an investor reported that he may have been the victim of fraud.
Investigators found that more than 800 people had already invested within the company.
Each one had made payments ranging between £5,000 and £140,000.
Once the initial payment had been made, they had then been pressured to purchase increasingly larger stakes in the fraud using a high-pressure sales tactic known as a ‘boiler room operation’.
The team running ELP used calculated campaigns to try and convince investors they were legitimate, including: playing a…
