Richard Rufus, who played 288 games for Charlton between 1993 and 2004, has been jailed for seven and a half years after tricking his family and friends into investing more than £15m in a foreign currency exchange scam.
Rufus was found guilty of four counts of fraud by false representation, money laundering and one count of carrying out a regulated activity without authorisation, after a four-week trial. The 48-year-old was sentenced at Southwark crown court on Thursday.
Rufus spent hundreds of thousands of pounds funding his lifestyle after convincing those close to him that their payment would be low risk and high return.
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 his trading activities. Rufus claimed he was an experienced foreign exchange broker but was using his victims’ money to reimburse those who had paid in as part of a pyramid scheme.
He told 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 £15m paid to accounts controlled by Rufus, investors received back about £7.6m.
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