An Irish National was yesterday (14 April) sentenced to almost five years imprisonment at Westminster Magistrates Court for his part in a £4m boiler room fraud, the Serious Fraud Office announced.
John Curtin was a salesman and manager involved in the fraudulent sale of company shares to British residents at “vastly inflated prices”.
He did this by acting through unregulated businesses.
He worked in Barcelona and then Limerick, selling “worthless shares” over the telephone and he also trained new salesmen to call potential investors.
The offences took place between 2005 and 2007.
Together with a man called Damien Smith, Mr Curtin ran the Limerick outfit.
Over the course of just a few months, the conspirators’ global business, Secure Trade and Title Ltd, accumulated more than £4m from investors.
The SFO said investors had “no idea” that most of the money for the shares which they transferred into a UK Lloyd’s bank account, was not going to the company in which they had been encouraged to invest.
Instead it was siphoned off by the boiler rooms, the SFO said.
Mr Curtin is the final defendant in the Secure Trade and Title Limited prosecution brought by the SFO and was arrested in France in October 2013 under a European Arrest Warrant.
He pleaded guilty in March this year.
Mr Curtin was also sentenced to nine months imprisonment for breaching the general prohibition in the Financial Services & Markets Act 2000, for dealing, arranging and advising on investments without authorisation. The two sentences will run concurrently.
Mr Curtin was one of five conspirators convicted for their roles in this conspiracy to defraud investors in the UK.
He is the final defendant in the Secure Trade and Title Ltd prosecution brought by the SFO.
The SFO obtained prison sentences against a total of four other co-conspirators. Brian O’Brien, Lynne Jane D’Albertson and James Pye were sentenced in April 2012. Mr Smith was sentenced in May 2012.
