Legal News

A bogus wine dealer has been convicted on 22 counts of fraud at Snaresbrook Crown Court in northeast London, after he defrauded his girlfriend and other clients of £100,000 by pretending he was a successful international businessman.

Lasse Hartmann, 43, also claimed he had served in the Danish special forces and that he was knighted in his home country.

However, in reality, he had moved to the UK after being released from a Danish prison for defrauding his own father out of large sums of money.

Many of his victims were persuaded to part with money for wine packages at a discount rate, which never materialised – Hartmann claimed they were “stuck in customs”. Some of his clients were then asked to lend him money to pay for exporting the wine to the UK.

He lived under the fake name of Lars Petraus and showed his girlfriend fake bank accounts and rented Belgravia and Park Lane flats.

He promised they would live in a £4.7 million home in Barnes, to convince her to lend him £13,900 – purportedly to pay taxes to release his frozen fortune of 32 million Euros in Luxembourg.

However, to help him, she had to resort to moving the couple in with her parents, as well as borrowing money from a loan shark and from her sister.

When she later tried to recoup some money by selling her engagement ring – which she thought was worth thousands of pounds – she discovered it was a fake worth just £20.

Hartmann persuaded another victim to become his personal assistant – she worked for free for two months and was left without £4,500 in salary. He also tricked her mother into paying £750 for non-existent tickets to the Monaco Grand Prix.

The court heard he also hired a personal driver, promising him up to £3,800 a month, plus £35,000 to buy a Mercedes. However, Hartmann tricked him out of his entire savings of £2,500 as an investment in fake wine bonds. His driver was left out of pocket by £22,958.60 in wages, expenses and his savings.

Hartman also booked an expensive wedding planner for his upcoming wedding – estimated to cost between £200,000 and £250,000 – but never paid; and also promised to buy a business for £1.5m to persuade its owner to give him a £19,667.60 loan.

Hartmann was found guilty of 22 counts of fraud involving 20 people, which were carried out between January 2014 and October 2015. The direct loss to his victims was around £102,000 – but the overall estimated business losses were more than £120,000.
CPS lawyer Abiodun Kadri said:

“Lasse Hartmann was a committed conman, who had no qualms about tricking people he came into contact with out of large sums of money to pay rent on his expensive homes and support his gambling habit.

“The prosecution case – which included bad character evidence – showed that, far from a mistake that spiralled out of control, this was a determined attempt to trick victim after victim.”

The case was prosecuted by CPS London North.

Duncan Lewis Criminal Lawyers

Duncan Lewis Criminal Lawyers can advise at any stage of a charge involving fraud or serious fraud, including charges relating to: