Forty-one-year-old Anthony Constantinou, the former Director of a supposed forex investment firm, Capital World Markets (CWM), has been found guilty of a £70 million forex investment fraud. Constantinou was convicted in absence on Monday by a jury of the Southwark Crown Court, the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS) said in a statement.
Court Slams CWM Mastermind
According to the CPS, a non-ministerial department responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in England and Wales, the English court found Constantinou guilty of fraud by false representation, fraudulent trading and money laundering. He fled during the trial which started in March, the prosecutor said.
⚖️ Anthony Constantinou, 41, former director of finance company CWM, based in the City of London, was convicted today of being responsible for an investment fraud of around £70m.
— Crown Prosecution Service (@CPSUK) May 22, 2023
Providing details on the case, the prosecutor explained that Constantinou ran CWM, CW Markets and other variations of the investment scheme through various corporate entities between late 2013 and March 2015. The scheme, which was called ‘Managed Accounts,’ promised investors a 5% return on investment (ROI) or 60% ROI per annum for investing in “allegedly risk-free transactions on the foreign exchange (FX) Markets.”
In particular, the scheme asked investors for a minimum investment of £50,000 to get back £100,000. In addition, it assured investors that it could offer such high ROI “because of special ways of foreign exchange trading that gave the companies access to preferential prices.” However, these claims were false, the prosecutor said.
“The companies did not invest tens of millions of pounds in the foreign exchange markets. They did not make a fortune and pay their investors out of that,” the CPS explained. “What was done was much more straightforward and fraudulent: Investors' returns were paid directly out of the investments, and the rest of the money was spent.”
‘A Career Criminal’
Furthermore, the prosecutor said Constantinou splashed millions of pounds on the maintenance of the reputation of CWM, including by investing in sponsorship deals. These deals were designed to make the firm look successful and attract more investments.
Moreover, Constantinou controlled the CWM and its affiliates, including their key bank accounts. As a result, millions of pounds were paid to the former director through these entities. Prosecutors seized a high-powered Range Rover and Ferrari, which were bought by Constantinou.
“This has been a long-running and complex investigation,” said Nichola Meghji, a Detective Inspector with the City of London Police. “Anthony Constantinou is a career criminal who is out to make as much money for himself as possible, with no regard for anyone else.”
On top of that, Meghji noted that Constantinou throughout the duration of the police investigation made efforts to deceive the police and continued to maintain his innocence.
“In a further move to deny any involvement in this case, he decided to stop attending his trial,” Meghji added.
A Ponzi-Like Scheme
CWM, a Cypriot broker, was launched in October 2014 and initially operated based on Leverate’s license until the forex technology provider cut all ties with the company in 2015. The firm lured investors by projecting an aura of exclusivity through its luxurious office in London's Heron Tower, which were sponsorships of various sports events including the popular Chelsea Football Club.
However, CWM ran into trouble in March 2015 after it was revealed that the firm was the target of the City of London Police’s raid on Heron Tower in Bishopsgate during which 13 individuals who worked for the firms were arrested on suspicion of fraud by false representation, conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.
CWM denied the allegations, saying it was “the victim of an orchestrated campaign initiated by individuals motivated by personal animosity." However, the police found that the company through its scheme had targeted hundreds of members of the UK Gurkha and Nepalese communities, culminating in a potential scam worth an estimated $72.9 million (£50 million) at the time.
Also, CWM’s parent company, CWM Group, was linked to a massive $16 billion Ponzi scheme allegedly orchestrated by the Mauritius-regulated Belvedere Management Limited. During this period, Chelsea FC removed CWM from its sponsors’ list. Clients of the company also filed a class action suit against offshore bank, DMS Bank & Trust Limited. The investors had deposited about £50 million into an account with the bank supposedly for foreign exchange trading by CMW in order to earn the promised ROI.
Who Is Anthony Constantinou?
Constantinou became a business executive at the age of 24 in 2005 when he led AC Enterprises Limited as the Chief Executive. Later, he would run Aixia Limited (trading as T4X Binary or T4X Signals) as a director. The platform was later flagged by the UK's financial markets regulator.
For over a decade, Constantinou, who was sentenced to jail for 12 months in 2016 for sexual assault, ran 24 different companies as a director. However, none of the companies survived as they were all later dissolved.
Meanwhile, Finance Magnates recently reported that Cornelius Johannes Steynberg, the South African CEO behind a $1.7 billion retail forex and commodity pool fraud, was recently ordered by a federal court in the United States to pay a total of $3.4 billion. The amount comprises $1.7 billion in restitution payment to investors defrauded of about 30,000 Bitcoin and another $1.7 billion as a civil monetary penalty.
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