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Celebrity investors lose out in UK Ponzi scheme
Business Digest: Harry Potter actress is among investors who will probably never get their money back, FSA says
Harry Potter and Rising Damp actress Frances de la Tour, England cricketer Darren Gough and singer Jerome Flynn are among some 500 investors who are unlikely to recover much of the £115m they are owed by three men accused of orchestrating a spectacularly ambitious Ponzi scheme from offices in Knightsbridge.
City watchdog the Financial Services Authority (FSA) yesterday secured a high court order enforcing repayment by the three principals Nandan Pruthi, Kenneth Peacock and John Anderson. Despite this the funds may never be recovered, the FSA has admitted.
According to police, some of the investors have been made bankrupt, lost homes or even attempted suicide. Delivering his judgement at the High Court in London Mr Justice Vos said: "I regret to say that this approach by the defendants demonstrates a naivety with which I found it hard to sympathise. The rates of return offered were simply uncommercial and unsustainable."
Read a full report in the Guardian. ·
