"This brings to an end the FCA’s largest fraud prosecution which has seen the perpetrators imprisoned for a total of 28.5 years"
The sentencing the total imprisonment for all six to 28.5 years.
Michael Nascimento was the 'controlling mind' and main beneficiary of a share fraud carried out through a series of boiler room companies which led to the loss of more than £2.8 million of investors’ money.
Between July 2010 and April 2014, members of the public were cold-called and subjected to high pressure sales tactics to persuade them to purchase shares in a company that owned land on the island of Madeira. The investors were told that the value of the shares would increase substantially when permission to build 20 villas was granted, thereby enhancing the land’s value.
Investors were promised guaranteed returns of between 125% and 228%, but none were ever paid.
The investigation found that investors’ money was instead used to maintain the fraud and particularly to fund the lifestyle of Nascimento.
Over 170 members of the public invested more than £2.8 million in the shares. Many were elderly or vulnerable, and lost life-changing sums, in some cases all their life savings.
In sentencing Mr Nascimento, the trial judge, His Honour Judge Hehir, remarked that Mr Nascimento had shown 'utter cynicism and contempt' for some of the victims. He also said it was 'particularly repellent' that elderly people had been specifically targeted and that many of the victims were vulnerable. He said that some of the stories he had heard during the trial were 'positively heart-breaking' and that many of the victims had suffered 'life-shattering losses'. The Judge said, 'despicable was not too strong a word' to describe some of Nascimento’s actions.
The Judge commented that Mr Nascimento was 'very adept at getting others to do his dirty work for [him]' and that many of his actions were 'specifically designed to frustrate the task of the FCA and to prevent apprehension'.
Nascimento also received an additional sentence of two years for further criminality in respect of a separate prosecution by the Crown Prosecution Service and the City of London Police, taking his total sentence to 13 years.
Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: "This brings to an end the FCA’s largest fraud prosecution which has seen the perpetrators imprisoned for a total of 28.5 years, affording justice to victims who were the subject of their calculated deception. We are continuing to fight for compensation for victims out of their assets."
