millionaire retired advertising executive who helped a gang based on the TV drama Hustle to swindle dozens of pensioners out of their life savings was facing jail today.
Derek Voysey, 63, was nicknamed Albert Stroller by his fellow fraudsters, after the conman played by Robert Vaughn in the hit BBC series.
Voysey played a central role in the crime, a Southwark crown court jury heard. Teams of cold callers rang victims and offered them a chance to invest in what they claimed was a lucrative property portfolio near the 2012 Olympic Games site. The gang backed up their promises of high returns with glossy brochures and fake share certificates, making £286,000 during 2006 and 2007.
Voysey, of Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire, who supplied the phone lines and was offered a three per cent cut, was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud. Mastermind Adrian Davison, 42, of Chislehurst, Kent; accomplices Andrew Bingham, 72, of Rye, East Sussex, and Patrick Golding, 29, of Ashford in Kent, have admitted the same charge. All four will be sentenced later.
Prosecutor James Norman said: “They hit upon a topical way of convincing victims they were investing in a worthwhile scheme by latching on to the Olympic Games.
“Essentially, the fraudsters told them, We own property in the area the Olympics are going to be and it's going to rocket in value, so you should invest in it'.”
Victims who agreed to invest would either transfer money directly to the bank account of the front company Almena Properties in Gibraltar, or to an address owned by Bingham in London. The court heard that police have been able to contact 20 victims, mainly elderly, but there are believed to be dozens more
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