Police question trader in £130m suspected Ponzi investment fraud
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Version 0 of 1. Fraud squad officers are questioning a currency trader linked to a suspected global £130m Ponzi scheme. Nearly 400 people from across the UK and around the world, including investors from Thailand and Australia, have come forward with complaints about the investment scheme according to police, with one consortium having handed over £4m and another individual putting in £830,000. Many investors, some of whom are in their Seventies and Eighties, are facing financial ruin after handing over their life savings. Police declined to comment on reports that the man being questioned is businessman Joe Lewis, whose firm JL Trading was linked to a suspected Ponzi fraud last December. But some investors have reportedly said they were persuaded into handing over money in the mistaken belief that the man behind the scheme was the wealthy owner of Tottenham Hotspur FC, who is also named Joe Lewis. The owner of the Premier League club has no links whatsoever with this alleged fraud. Ponzi schemes offer investors high returns on their initial investment. In reality their money is usually spent paying back early investors, covering business and other costs, and often funding big spending on luxury items. A City of London police spokesman said: “A 59-year-old currency trader was arrested in East Yorkshire by detectives on suspicion of fraud by false representation and money laundering and is currently being questioned in a local police station.” The spokesman said the arrest was part of an ongoing investigation into a suspected Ponzi fraud worth tens of millions of pounds. Police were alerted to the allegations after a number of people who had invested large sums with an investment firm based in Beverley, north Humberside, but thought to be operating from Istanbul in Turkey, received an email warning them the company had ceased trading having “lost almost all its assets”. Three days after sending the email it was reported that the businessman behind the firm had walked into a Humberside police station where he is said to have told officers he had received death threats following the collapse of his investment business. Police declined to make an arrest at the time. Shortly afterwards the UK National Fraud Intelligence Bureau identified links between separate fraud reports and alerted detectives at Humberside Police. Police said since Christmas the scale of the alleged fraud continued to increase – with estimates putting losses at £130m – and after making initial enquiries Humberside Police passed the investigation to City of London Police. Detective Inspector Nigel Howard, who is leading the investigation, said: “We now urge anyone who believes they have fallen victim to an investment fraud, both in the Humberside region and across the UK, to report to Action Fraud.” |