Certainly one of 5 Oxbridge-educated fraudsters – who conned rich people to speculate £65m in faux “inexperienced” tasks – has been sentenced to a further eight years in jail this week for non-payment of a £2.7m Confiscation Order.
At Westminster Magistrates’ Court docket yesterday, ex-solicitor Rodney Whiston-Dew was ordered to serve an extra eight years and 9 months in jail after failing to pay again £2.7m of his positive aspects from a faux ‘inexperienced’ funding scheme.
Mr Whiston-Dew, 71, a former President of the Rotary Membership of London, was initially convicted and sentenced in 2017 with 4 others, all of them Oxbridge-educated, of dishonest the general public income.
Two years later, the Crown Prosecution Service efficiently utilized to the courtroom for Mr Whiston-Dew, of Woking, Surrey, to pay again £3,035,192.97 of his positive aspects, decreased to £2,732,788.96 by the courtroom in October 2023. The full quantity owing is presently £3,463,224.11 with curiosity.
After paying again simply over £70,409.56, the CPS took him to Metropolis of London Magistrates’ Court docket on 24 November, for non-payment of the total quantity and requested the District Choose activate a further jail sentence as a substitute.
The fraudsters informed their buyers that their cash could be spent on analysis and growth in carbon credit, attracting greater than £65m from buyers who pumped cash into the ‘inexperienced’ scheme. Nonetheless, solely £16m of this was spent on planting timber.
The ‘inexperienced funding’ rip-off conned many rich individuals out of a minimum of £65m in whole. Victims included comedians, sports activities stars and the households of politicians.
The group stole £20m of buyers’ cash and laundered it through financial institution accounts and secret trusts, spending it on luxurious properties in London, Australia, and Dubai in addition to hidden offshore investments. Additionally they did not pay round £6.5m in tax.
Rodney Whiston-Dew was initially convicted in November 2017 of a conspiracy to cheat the general public income. He was sentenced to a complete of 10 years’ imprisonment and disqualified from being an organization director.
Adrian Foster, chief crown prosecutor of the CPS Proceeds of Crime Division, mentioned: “Rodney Whiston-Dew did not pay again the £2.7m that he owed, so the CPS have returned him to courtroom and now he has had a further default sentence of eight years and 9 months imprisonment on prime of his unique sentence.
“We labored with HMRC to ensure he didn’t profit from the proceeds of his crime, however he has solely paid again a paltry quantity of his out there property.
“Even when fraudsters are convicted and sentenced the CPS will proceed to robustly pursue them for the cash they owe, or they threat remaining in jail for a lot of extra years in the event that they fail to pay their order in full.”
Two of Mr Whiston-Dew’s fellow fraudsters, Evdoros Demetriou and Michael Richards, had been returned to jail in 2021 to serve a further 9 and 6 years in jail for failing to pay again £4.6m and £9.9m respectively. In whole, all 5 offenders had been informed to repay £20.6m.
The CPS mentioned that within the final 5 years from 2018 to 2023, over £480m has been recovered from CPS obtained Confiscation Orders. Some £105m of that quantity has been returned to victims of crime as compensation.
