The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ) has issued an alert on Wednesday targeting victims of an illegal investment scheme to come forward after it was decided to compensate them. According to the announcement, after a hearing before the Southwark Crown Court, the FCA agreed to secure asset confiscation orders against six individuals who are convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment totaling more than 28 years.
The case is known as the watchdog’s largest fraud prosecution ever made. Per the court ruling, confiscation orders issued against the individuals include Michael Nascimento for £976,508.83; Charanjit Sandhu for £391,680.17; Stuart Rea for £46,183.74; Ryan Parker for £345,775.52; Jeannine Lewis for £105,538.00 and Hugh Edwards in the nominal sum of £1.
“The court also ordered these amounts be paid as compensation to the victims of the illegal investment scheme,” the FCA announcement said. The case dates back to 2018, where Nascimento was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment for his role in a share fraud carried out through a series of boiler room companies which led to the loss of more than £2.8 million of investors’ money. The prosecutors accused him of being the primary beneficiary of the illegal scheme.
Final Call to Unlocated Victims
According to today’s announcement, the FCA already identified all the victims, except for around 20 individuals. The watchdog already issued a final call to claim their respective compensation. “The Court also imposed default prison sentences under the terms of the Confiscation Orders for each of the individuals, which means that they would each be liable to serve a term of imprisonment in the event that they do not satisfy their respective Confiscation Orders,” the UK FCA clarified.
In May, the UK financial regulator announced it would further strengthen consumer protection in retail financial markets by adding a new set of consumer duties for the regulated financial companies.
