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Property fund villain slapped with extra jail time for failure to repay full compensation

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  • 14/12/2017
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Property fund villain slapped with extra jail time for failure to repay full compensation
Ross Peters, one of eight fraudsters who sold over £5m of over-valued property investments, has been handed 400 extra days behind bars for failing to repay the full confiscation order sum owed to his victims.

The Confiscation Order totaling £136,238 in January 2017 at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court, but Peters has only repaid £20,869.08.

A total of £6,673.25 has accrued in interest and which is accruing at a daily rate of £26.06 on the outstanding balance.

Mark Steward, director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “Confiscation orders cannot be ignored and will be enforced to ensure wrongdoers are held to account and their victims compensated as far as possible.”

The 400-day sentence imposed earlier this week is in addition to the term of five and a half years’ imprisonment that Peters received on 27 April 2015.

All money recovered from Peters will be used to compensate the victims of his crimes. Those who have suffered a quantifiable loss should expect to receive just over 40% of the capital amount owed to them.

Peters is one of eight defendants fined a total of almost £2.2m, after the regulator’s investigation, Operation Cotton, led to eight convictions after one of the largest ever investigations into the boiler room scam.

Between July 2008 and November 2011, an unauthorised collective investment scheme was operated through three companies: Plott Investments Ltd (which changed its name to Plott UK Ltd), European Property Investments (UK) Ltd and Stirling Alexander Ltd.

Salesmen for the companies cold-called potential investors to sell them agricultural land that the companies had bought for minimal amounts, as well as land the companies did not own.

The cash was extracted from investors to buy land at a vastly inflated price on the false promise of a substantial profit, which never materialised.

Scott Crawley and the salesmen who worked with him were assisted by Dale Walker, a conveyancing solicitor who received hundreds of thousands of pounds into his accounts. He was convicted of possessing criminal property contrary to section 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, as well as aiding and abetting the carrying out of a regulated activity.

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