Police say a gang of Bitcoin fraudsters made so much money they handed out £5,000 gift cards to people in the street and bought cars for people they met in the pub.
Four criminals at the centre of the £22m conspiracy have now been sentenced. They worked with ringleader James Parker, who masterminded the scam from his Blackpool home. Parker died in 2021 before he could be brought to justice.
Between October 2017 and January 2018 the group exploited a loophole to siphon off more than £20m from Parker's trading account on an Australian-based cryptocurrency exchange. Parker's corrupt financial adviser Stephen Boys, nicknamed 'Rodney' after the character in Only Fools and Horses, helped launder the stolen funds.
Read more:
The scam made so much money that £5,000 gift cards were handed out to people in the street and cars were bought for people Parker met in the pub. During the trial Boys told the court how he took £1m cash in a suitcase to buy a villa from Russians he met in the back office of an estate agent and paid £60,000 to pay off corrupt officials so he could carry on laundering money.
During the investigation police recovered 445 Bitcoin, then worth £22m, along with luxury watches, houses, cars and designer goods, including a £600 wine cooler, along with more than £1m in bank accounts. Boys worked with a UK national based in Dubai to convert the cryptocurrency into cash.
It was then laundered through various foreign based online accounts.
Det Sgt David Wainwright, of Lancashire Police's Fraud Unit, said: "The scale of the fraud in this case is absolutely staggering and led to the suspects literally having more money than they could spend. I would like to pay tribute to all the agencies who worked closely together to bring these people to justice."
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: "A very significant amount of the laundered assets have been returned or are in the process of being recovered on the behalf of the Australian cryptocurrency exchange."
Prosecutor Jonathan Kelleher added: "These offenders used the internet from the comfort of their own homes to obtain tens of millions of pounds worth of Bitcoin which did not belong to them."
Stephen Boys, 59, Winster Court, Clayton le Moors, was found guilty of converting and transferring criminal property and jailed for six years. Kelly Caton, 45, of Livingstone Road, Blackpool, was convicted of fraud, converting and acquiring criminal property and jailed for four-and-a-half years
Jordan Robinson, 24, of Pulton Road, Fleetwood, was found guilty of fraud, converting and acquiring criminal property and also jailed for four-and-a-half years James Austin-Beddoes, 28, of Brighton Avenue, Lytham, found guilty of fraud and acquiring criminal property. He pleaded guilty to converting criminal property earlier and was jailed for 18 months, suspended for a year.
Read more of today's top stories here
READ NEXT:
- 'I don't know what to say': Lying paedophile dumbfounded after police show him indisputable evidence of his vile crimes
- 'I risked everything on my dream. Covid and Putin have turned it to a nightmare'
- 'Be under no illusions about how close you have come to prison today': Greater Manchester criminals who avoided jail by a whisker
- 'Dad left, mum turned to drink, we were torn apart - all because of a serial rapist who must never be set free'
- Kym Marsh 'screamed at' during meal at Manchester diner with Corrie pal and husband Scott
