Three British men have been jailed for a total of 43 years
at a court in Florida for conning UK investors out of £80 million ($123 million) by
acquiring dormant publicly-traded companies in the US and using them to sell “worthless
stock.”

The sentencing of Richard Pope, 55, Paul Gunter, 64, and Simon Odoni, 56, is
a “major milestone” in a seven-year trans-Atlantic investigation, according to
an announcement made yesterday by the City of London
Police.

The trio coordinated a network of Spanish boiler rooms
employing hundreds of people to “ruthlessly target investors using high
pressure and misleading sales techniques,” it said. “The enormity of the case
was first discovered when the City of London Police
linked a number of investigations in the UK
to those being conducted by Federal Agencies in the US.”

At least 2,300 people in the UK lost money to the fraud, with individual
losses ranging from “a few hundred pounds up to a million pounds.”  

The funds were used to expand the criminal network and subsidize
the gang's extravagant lifestyles, including the purchase of a £350,000 private jet, 26
properties in the US, three in the Dominican
Republic, and numerous high-value cars
and speed boats.

According to the announcement, in March 2009 the US Attorney’s
Office charged seven defendants, including Pope, Odoni and Gunter, with offences
including money laundering and mail and wire fraud. Then, in March 2011, Pope pleaded guilty to conspiracy to
commit mail and wire fraud. Two US
lawyers were a year later found guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The trial of Gunter and Odoni took place in March of this
year and they were found guilty in April.

The City of London Police
worked with US
law enforcement agencies and was supported by the Serious Fraud Office, Spanish
National Police and Norfolk Police in its investigation.