- Government committee estimates £10bn lost to pension scams
- Experts say property investment fraud is particularly hard to uncover
David Ames’ business looked like the real deal. The Essex-born man promised massive returns for investors in his Caribbean resort development company Harlequin Group. He had the backing of former footballers including Andy Townsend and John Barnes, financial advisers and institutions, and even property TV celebrity and Location, Location, Location host Phil Spencer.
Then it all came tumbling down. Two months ago, Ames was sentenced to 12 years in prison for defrauding more than 8,000 people of their investments between 2010 and 2015 in what the judge described as a “gigantic ponzi scheme” amounting to £226mn. The court heard how thousands of victims lost their pension funds and life savings investing in Ames’ fraudulent business while the man himself pocketed £6.2mn.
The story is an extreme example of an all-too-common kind of property investment scam whereby criminals posing as legitimate entrepreneurs dupe swathes of small-time investors by promising them a healthy return on their investment. The scam works by asking individuals to stump up thousands of pounds at a time usually from their pension pot to invest in schemes which are not yet built.
After the people behind the scam have pocketed all they can, they disappear – either by collapsing the company or group of companies in some way or by ghosting their…
