The mastermind behind a scheme that used high-pressured sales tactics to persuade members of the public to buy shares in a company that owned land on Madeira has been jailed for 11 years.
Michael Nascimento was “the controlling mind, instigator and the main beneficiary of the fraud”, according to the Financial Conduct Authority.
The scam ran between July 2010 and April 2014 and snared 170 members of the public, who collectively invested more than £2.8m ($3.7m, €3.15m) in the shares.
The investors were told that the value of the shares would increase substantially when permission to build 20 villas was granted.
They were promised guaranteed returns of between 125% and 228%.
None were ever paid. The money was instead used to fund Nascimento’s lifestyle.
Many of the investors were elderly or vulnerable and lost life-changing sums of money.
“In some cases, all their life savings,” the FCA said.
Particularly repellent
Commenting on the case, Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “This brings to an end the FCA’s largest fraud prosecution, which has seen the [six] perpetrators imprisoned for a total of 28.5 years, affording justice to victims who were the subject of their calculated deception.
“We are continuing to fight for compensation for victims out of their assets.”
In sentencing, judge Hehir said that Nascimento had shown “utter cynicism and contempt” for some of his victims.
He said it was “particularly repellent” that elderly people had been specifically targeted and that many were vulnerable.
Hehir added that Nascimento was “very adept at getting others to do his dirty work” and that many of his actions were “specifically designed to frustrate the task of the FCA and to prevent apprehension”.
