A former Premier League footballer who used the names of stars including Rio Ferdinand to entice investors has been jailed for seven-and-a-half years over an £8 million trading scam.
Ex-Charlton Athletic player Richard Rufus, 48, spent hundreds of thousands of pounds funding his own lifestyle after convincing friends and family into putting their money in a foreign currency exchange scheme.
He used his status as a former sportsman to give the impression he was wealthy and successful, when in reality he was failing to make a profit from the trading activities.
Rufus claimed he was an experienced foreign exchange broker but was in fact using his victims’ money to reimburse those who had paid in as part of a pyramid scheme.
Rufus, who made 288 appearances for Charlton after joining the club in 1993, told investors current and ex-footballers, including former England and Manchester United defender Ferdinand, 44, were already on board.
He claimed to one one victim that he only traded 5% of the capital investment, which meant 95% would have been retained safely – reducing the risk of incurring large losses.
Of the £15 million paid to accounts controlled by Rufus, investors received back a total of around £7.6 million.
As a result of the scheme – which ran from May 2007 to the end of 2010 – relationships and loyalties between friends…
