Suspended sentence for client following involvement in £5.4m fraud.

Martin Goudie KC and Clea Topolski, instructed by Simon Hancock of Mitchells Solicitors, successfully obtained a suspended sentence for their client initially charged with a fraud valued at £5.4 million.

Investigations began in 2014 into a firm purporting to sell partnerships in Ecuadorian Gold mines. A number of individuals were interviewed by City of London Police and the Insolvency Service between 2014 and 2018. In 2019 four individuals were charged with conspiracy to defraud over 300 investors, who had lost all their money, of a total of £5.4 million between May 2013 and February 2015.

At the beginning of the trial in September 2022, due to last four months, two of the defendants pleaded guilty to the fraud and two other defendants, including the one represented by Martin and Clea, pleaded guilty to converting criminal property of just of over £60,000. Following a three day sentencing hearing in November 2022 Martin and Clea’s client was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment suspended for a period of two years.