Andrew Nathaniel Skeene and Junie Conrad Omari Bowers have both been sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment at Southwark Crown Court on 15 June 2022.
This comes several weeks after they were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud and misconduct in the course of winding up a company.
The duo were company directors of Global Forestry Investments, which was behind fraudulent green investment schemes in Brazil.
Global Forestry Investments was presented as an ethical investment scheme that would help protect the Amazon rainforest and support local communities, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said.
According to previous reporting by International Adviser, the minimum investment in the Brazilian teak plantation was £5,000 ($6,260, €5,579). It bought the investor one plot containing around 100 trees.
The scheme was promoted as being Sipp-compatible, with a minimum 10% return on investment per annum.
But, the SFO said “in reality, the duo were enriching themselves with the investors’ savings and pensions”. They took £37m of investments from around 2,000 victims.
‘Serious detrimental impact’
When handing down the sentences, judge Pegden said: “The investors believed that they were buying into an ethical investment scheme which would yield a safe and steady income.
“But the reality was that you wrote or said things about the schemes which were either false or misleading at the outset or became so, and you failed to correct them.”
The judge highlighted the “serious detrimental impact” the schemes had on investors including some victims being prevented from retiring and suffering “prolonged distress and mental anguish”.
Lisa Osofsky, director of the SFO, said the “sentencing warns fraudsters that if they choose to play fast and loose with others’ hard-earned savings or pensions, we will pursue them and they will be held accountable for their crimes”.
She added: “This is the first of seven cases we are taking to trial this year. Over the next six months we will prosecute a further 18 defendants for alleged fraud, valued at over £500m.”
