A businessman who made £13million in a huge fraud operation has been ordered to pay back just over £800 to prosecutors.
Alistair Greig, 69, funded a lavish lifestyle by masterminding a Ponzi scheme which convinced dozens of individuals to place their funds in "guaranteed" high interest accounts through his supposed connections with a major bank.
But such an arrangement with the bank did not in fact exist, and jurors found that Greig pocketed more than £13million of cash in the scam.
He instead used the sums to buy top of the range cars, fancy holiday homes and no-expense-spared trips to Premier League matches.
Greig is currently serving a 10 year prison term, with prosecutors using proceeds of crime legislation to attempt to recover his fraudulent gains.
On Monday, prosecutors and Greig’s legal team agreed that the accused made a total of £13,281,671.25 from criminal activities.
However, both lawyers told judge Lord Braid that Greig only has £814.33 available to seize in his present circumstances.
Prosecution lawyer Dan Byrne told the High Court in Edinburgh that the Crown will return to court if it discovers any more of Greig’s ill gotten gains.
Lord Braid then ordered the sum of £814.33 to be handed over to the authorities.
He said: “I will make an order in that sum to be made available to the sheriff clerk at Airdrie within six months of today’s date.”
Greig was unanimously found guilty in 2020 of obtaining £13,281,671.25 by fraud through his scheme between August 2001 and October 2014.
He pretended to investors he would place money for in a short term deposit scheme with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for fixed periods of time.
In addition, Greig was also convicted of breaching financial services and markets legislation and converting and transferring £5.7million in criminal property.
The Crown listed a total of 165 victims of fraud on the indictment brought against the 69-year-old, formerly of Cairnbulg in Aberdeenshire.
Some of the money was used to fund his investments in property, including a holiday home in Cornwall, and a classic car business.
Greig also treated himself to a high end Bentley and Range Rover vehicles, while spending lavishly on trips to Old Trafford to see Manchester United and to Cheltenham and Ascot for race meetings.
Prosecution lawyer Steven Borthwick told jurors that Greig used the money entrusted to him as "his own personal slush fund”.
Greig, who has since been made bankrupt in England, had led clients and advisers to believe that he had access to a high interest account at RBS because of his connections.
But Mr Borthwick said: "The truth of the matter is Alistair Greig had no special relationship with RBS."
Passing sentence, Lord Tyre said: "The amount that you helped yourself to in order to fund a lavish lifestyle was also extremely large- almost £6million found its way into your own bank accounts."
The judge said that Greig had operated the fraud over a long period time.
He said in sentencing the fraudster: "Most of all I take account of the devastating impact that this fraud has had on a very large number of people, whose trust you deliberately and cruelly betrayed."
"You knew that the money you obtained from these people was earning nothing. You helped yourself to it whenever you felt like it."
"Right until the end you encouraged friends to deposit funds to maintain the pretence, even when you must have known that they would probably lose everything.”
During a short hearing on Monday, Greig appeared in the dock wearing a pin striped suit. He sat beside two security officers.
Mr Byrne told the court about the sums that Greig had made from the scheme.
Defence advocate Ronnie Renucci KC said Greig’s decision to hand over the sum in the case wasn’t an indication that he had accepted his guilt for the offences
He added: “It is not an admission of his guilt. The accused continues to denies his guilt for the offences in this matter.
“There’s a potential appeal process in the background.”
Lord Braid ordered the sum to be paid within six months of Monday’s date.
