A UK court has sentenced Anthony Constantinou, 41, the former Director of Capital World Markets (CWM), to 14 years imprisonment. Constantinou was found guilty late last month by the Southwark Crown Court of defrauding investors of £70 million through a fake forex investment firm.

Anthony Constantinou Finally Lands in Jail

According to the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS), a government department responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in England and Wales, Constantinou was imprisoned on Friday after being sentenced. The former CWM boss had absconded during his trial that started in March.

Last month, he was tried in his absence and found guilty of fraud by false representation, fraudulent trading and money laundering . Constantinou, who ran 24 different now-comatose companies over a 10-year period, previously served a jail sentence of a year in 2015 for sexual assault.

CWM was launched in October 2013 and operated under various brand names including CW Markets. The firm ran an investment scheme called ‘Managed Accounts’, supposedly to provide investors with access to ‘risk-free transactions on the foreign exchange (FX) markets’.

The scheme promised investors a return of monthly 5% on their investment or 60% ROI per annum. In particular, the scheme asked investors for a minimum investment of £50,000 to generate £100,000, assuring that it had ‘special ways of foreign exchange trading’ that gave it access to ‘preferential prices’.

However, the prosecutor said in a statement that these claims were false, explaining that CWM ran a Ponzi like-scheme by simply paying investors from others’ investments and making off with the rest of the funds.

“This was a callous scam targeting members of the public,” said Emma Beazley, a Specialist Prosecutor in CPS’s Serious Economic Organized Crime and International Directorate. “Many people lost their hard-earned money because of Constantinou’s greed and false promises in this fake investment scheme.”

In 2015, CWM's clients initiated a class action lawsuit against a Cayman Islands-based bank, DMS Bank& Trust Limited, alleging that they were defrauded of nearly £50 million through a managed fund operated by the fake FX investment firm.

CWM Targeted Minority Communities

According to details shared by CPS, CWM, which ran a luxurious office in London’s Heron Tower, splashed millions of pounds on sponsorship deals. This includes the sports industry to make CWM look successful and keep on attracting investment. In 2015, it even signed a promotional deal with a popular English football club (FC), Chelsea. However, the FC quickly removed the firm from its sponsors’ list after fraud allegations emerged against the company.

Troubles started for CWM in March 2015 following the revelation that it was targetted in a raid on Heron Tower in Bishopsgate by the City of London Police. During the raid, 13 individuals working for the firm were rounded up on suspicion of fraud, false representation and conspiracy to defraud as well as money laundering.

Although CWM denied the allegations, police later found that the company had potentially defrauded hundreds of members of the UK, Gurkha and Nepalese communities of about £50 million ($72.9 million) at the time. CWM Group, the firm’s parent company, was linked to a Ponzi scheme that was estimated at $16 billion.

In 2014, Leverate partnered with CWM to offer its services to the company. However, a few months later, the forex trading technology provider cut all ties with the firm. The detachment happened around the time of the Heron Tower raid.