The director of a wine investment company has been jailed for five-and-a-half years, after defrauding elderly investors whom he had cold called with an investment “opportunity”.
Jonothan Piper, 30, of Foxglove Gardens, Wanstead in east London was sentenced after pleading guilty to one count of fraudulent trading, two counts of money laundering and one count of cheating HM Revenue and Customs of tax at Snaresbrook Crown Court on 22 August 2016.
The court heard he defrauded investors out of hundreds of thousands of pounds and failed to pay tax and National Insurance on his earnings for six years.
Piper was the director of Embassy Wine (UK) Limited – and had previously traded as a land and diamonds salesman.
Investors complained that they had been mis-sold expensive wine collections – and had either not received the wine they were promised, or were deceived in respect of the expected returns.
Many investors were then persuaded to sell their wine collections to Piper’s company – but did not receive the promised payment.
An investigation by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) found that Piper had not traded legitimately – and had set up the company simply to defraud investors of approximately £300,000.
BEIS discovered that HMRC was also conducting an investigation into Piper and the case was jointly prosecuted with the CPS – between 2008 and 2014, Piper withheld more than £51,000 in Income Tax and National Insurance contributions from his undeclared earnings.
After sentencing, Deputy Chief Investigation Officer Ian West from BEIS said:
“Mr Piper cynically attempted to dissolve his company Embassy Wine (UK) Limited without notifying his creditors of his intention – or complying with the three-month trading restriction prior to any application for the striking off/dissolution of a company – to mask his fraudulent activity.
“It was established that he had defrauded his company’s unsuspecting clients of in excess of £295,000 in a wine investment scam, carried out in conjunction with other frauds against the revenue to fund his expensive lifestyle.
“He now has to face the serious consequences of his criminal lifestyle.
“This case should serve as a warning to those that seek to utilise the insolvency regime to further fraudulent activity that the BEIS Criminal Enforcement Directorate will, with law enforcement partners, ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted with the full force of the law.”
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