The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced today that Phillip Boakes has been sentenced to 730 days of imprisonment for failing to satisfy the full value of a confiscation order made against him. Boakes was originally sentenced to 10 years in prison for defrauding over 30 investors out of more than £3.5 million after soliciting them to invest with his company, CurrencyTrader Ltd. The sentence imposed today is in addition to the term of 10 years of imprisonment that Boakes received on the 6th of March 2015. To date, the full value of the Order to the sum of £165,731 remains unpaid.
Commenting on the case, Mark Steward, Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight, said “The FCA welcomes the Court’s decision today. Wrongdoers should not be able to retain the benefits of their wrongdoing. The FCA will continue to ensure orders to strip wrongdoers of their ill-gotten gains are enforced and not ignored or evaded.”
Boakes pleaded guilty on two counts of fraudulent trading, three counts of using a forged instrument and one count of accepting deposits without authorization. He ran his scam through his company Currency Trader Ltd, which claimed to carry out foreign Exchange spread betting for its customers. The scam encouraged people to invest on the promise of guaranteed annual returns of 20% or more. In reality, Boakes was not authorized by the FCA to accept deposits and the pledge of guaranteed returns was a fiction. The ‘returns’ were funded from existing client funds or from funds received from new investors.
Boakes is reported to have spent most of the money on funding a lavish lifestyle before filing for Bankruptcy in January 2013. At the time the Confiscation Order was made, it was accepted that he had no assets available to satisfy it. Following today’s hearing, all monies recovered from Boakes will be used to compensate the victims of his crimes.
