Forger Taheer Sardar has been sentenced to 18 months’ in jail right now at Southwark Crown Courtroom for perverting the course of justice.
He was linked to a group of individuals concerned in a “subtle” boiler room fraud that cheated 120 buyers out of a complete of £1.3m.
Mr Sardar, 45, of East London, pleaded responsible on 7 Might.
He was interviewed by Monetary Conduct Authority (FCA) workers as a part of an investigation into the funding con.
Three people, Mr Mirza, Mr Solaja and Mr Vickers had been convicted and sentenced to 23 years for the fraud following prosecution by the FCA.
The FCA didn’t discover that Mr Sardar was concerned within the fraud itself however mentioned he offered a cast doc with the intention to mislead the FCA.
In his interview, Mr Sardar, performing with Mr Mirza, offered a cast doc, which he claimed had been signed by a “Mohammed Khan”.
Mr Sardar sought to make use of the doc to bolster a defence raised by Raheel Mirza and Opeyemi Solaja, who had claimed – with out proof – that somebody named “Mohammed Khan” was the architect of the fraud they’d been concerned in.
Three folks had been convicted for funding fraud and sentenced to a complete of 24 and a half years for his or her roles in 2023. A fourth defendant was convicted for buying and selling with out FCA authorisation.
On 3 April 2023, following an 8-week trial at Southwark Crown Courtroom, Cameron Vickers, then 27, Raheel Mirza, then 38 and Opeyemi Solaja, then 33, had been convicted of conspiracy to defraud buyers by way of a faux, London-based firm referred to as Bespoke Markets Group (BMG).
Their rip-off fleeced round 120 UK buyers. Raheel Mirza was additional convicted of perverting the course of justice and Reuben Akpojaro, then 40, was convicted for providing binary possibility investments with out FCA authorisation. Mr Akpojaro was acquitted of conspiracy to defraud and cash laundering.
In a report of the sooner boiler room fraud case final 12 months, the FCA mentioned that between June 2016 and January 2020 Cameron Vickers, Raheel Mirza, Opeyemi Solaja and Reuben Akpojaro made chilly calls to members of the general public, utilizing pseudonyms, to persuade them to speculate with BMG. Varied UK and offshore corporations and financial institution accounts had been set as much as attempt to distance the defendants from the fraud (together with Upscale Restricted, registered within the Marshall Islands) and to launder cash.
They claimed to commerce their purchasers’ monies in ‘Binary Choices’, when in actuality the cash was shared among the many fraudsters to fund their existence. To encourage folks to speculate or make investments extra, BMG provided to match investments with their very own funds and refund losses within the first 3-6 months. The buyers had entry to a complicated on-line platform that appeared to indicate their funds being traded, nonetheless, this was manipulated to indicate buying and selling exercise when there was none.
At Mr Sardar’s sentencing on 10 Might 2024, the Decide, Mr Recorder Gavaghan, mentioned: “This was a complicated try utilizing a cast doc to undermine the course of justice…[it was] a really severe offence that strikes on the very core of the authorized system.”
Steve Sensible, joint govt director, enforcement and market oversight on the FCA, mentioned: “Mr Sardar’s conviction and sentence, is a powerful warning to anybody who could also be tempted to attempt to assist others escape justice – there isn’t a stone we’ll depart unturned.
“Perverting the course of justice is a severe offence, and the FCA is not going to hesitate to take motion when it identifies this has taken place.”
