A director of an Aberdeen-based financial services firm has been jailed for 14 years for his part in a fraudulent investment scheme that scammed people out of their life savings.
Alistair Greig, who ran Midas Financial Solutions, obtained over £13m ($16.2m, €14.9m) from investors and was found guilty in March 2020.
Judge Lord Tyre said during sentencing on 15 April: “The amount that you helped yourself to in order to fund a lavish lifestyle was also extremely large, almost £6m, found its way into your own bank accounts, and we heard ample evidence of the ways in which you spent this money or used it to expand your personal fortune.
“I take account of the devastating impact that this fraud has had on a very large number of people, whose trust you deliberately and cruelly betrayed for your own personal benefit.
“You knew that the money you obtained from these people was earning nothing. You helped yourself to it whenever you felt like it.
“Right until the end, you encouraged friends to deposit funds to maintain the pretence, even when you must have known that they would probably lose everything.”
Luxury
Midas, which was run by Greig and Ian Towe before it went bust in 2014, operated as an appointed representative of authorised firm Sense Network.
Investors were told by Midas that the investments carried “attractive guaranteed returns” placed on favourable terms due to the owner’s relationship with a well-known high street bank.
But the high-interest accounts never existed and, instead, investors’ money was placed into a “Ponzi scheme” operated by the owner of Midas, the High Court in Edinburgh heard.
While the money came in, Greig funded personal investments in property, including a holiday home in Cornwall, and a classic car business.
He treated himself to Bentley and Range Rover cars and spent money on trips to Old Trafford to see Manchester United and to Cheltenham and Ascot for horse racing meetings.
‘Personal slush fund’
Prosecutor Steven Borthwick told the High Court in March: “In some cases these were the life savings of people who had worked all their lives and saved to create a nest egg for their retirement.
“Alistair Greig used that money as his own personal slush fund.
“It seemed, from the outside, that the scheme was working as advertised but that was also a lie and that lie helped promote and prolong the big lie told by Alistair Greig.
“There were lies told by Alistair Greig to different people at different times over years with the same purpose – to put their trust in him so they would hand over their money.”
In February, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) made victims aware they may be eligible for compensation.
