Two brothers have been convicted of fraud and cash laundering after taking £750,000 out of a failed peer-to-peer fashion funding agency.
Peter and Andrew Currie had been prosecuted by the Monetary Conduct Authority.
At Southwark Crown Court docket on Monday Peter Currie (59) was convicted by unanimous verdicts of two counts of fraud and one in every of cash laundering whereas Andrew Currie (57) was convicted of 1 rely of fraud and one in every of cash laundering following a five-week trial.
Andrew Currie was acquitted of 1 rely of fraud.
Earlier than its collapse into administration in February 2018, their agency Collateral provided peer-to-peer fashion investments on an internet site which fraudulently claimed it was authorised and controlled by the FCA.
In December 2015 Peter Currie, a Collateral director, swapped the main points of a separate firm he had agreed to promote – Regal Pawnbrokers Ltd – for the main points of Collateral on the FCA register.
Over the next 18 months, the corporate was marketed as authorised to simply accept individuals to spend money on loans on the Collateral platform.
In January 2018 the FCA notified Peter Currie that it had uncovered the register change and ordered that Collateral stop unauthorised enterprise. Regardless of this, Collateral not solely continued to obtain investments however Peter and Andrew Currie additionally eliminated roughly £750,000 from the Collateral consumer accounts.
At across the identical time the Curries appointed, with out informing the FCA as required, an administrator and transferred an additional £88,000 from Collateral funds.
The FCA stated: “The integrity of the FCA Register is important to client safety. The Curries masqueraded as an authorised agency to defraud shoppers by falsifying the official file and the jury has fairly rightly concluded their conduct was prison.
“The FCA has invested closely within the Register to strengthen controls and make it simpler for individuals to make use of, with extra data accessible to shoppers.”
The costs confronted by Peter and Andrew Currie had been fraud by false illustration, opposite to sections 1 and a couple of of the Fraud Act 2006; fraud by abuse of place, opposite to sections 1 and 4 of the Fraud Act 2006; and changing prison property, opposite to part 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2000.
The brothers shall be sentenced on 7 July.
