21 February AtoZForex, Lagos – The City of London Police has again uncovered another fictitious scheme by a fraudster who succeeded in duping investors out of their hard earned cash: a UK million pound boiler room operation was revealed. Joseph Emery earned about a million pounds selling fictitious investment opportunities to his victims, but the long arm of the law has now caught up with him as he has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail at the Old Bailey, following an investigation which had taken years.
“Fraud by false representation”
Joseph Emery pleaded guilty to “fraud by false representation”, leading to his jail sentence this week after being busted for his boiler room operation. The case is credited to the City of London Police, after a long running investigation into the case. The 32 year old Londoner operated via the firm "EM Trade Capital Ltd" in Tower 42, located in the City of London. The operations of the firm were carried out from this office address, with a number of staff cold-calling individuals in a bid to sell them “investment opportunities, particularly in “rare earth metals.”
Cold-calling operation
The operations were run such that after calling potential victims, they follow up by sending a brochure to further spark any possible interest they may have had. The brochure contains information on the company and carbon credits. This was then followed up with sales calls, in a bid to pressure the client to commit his funds to the scheme. One of the victims claims to have invested £150,000, after haveing had several meetings with Joseph Emery. Another woman who was pressured into investing £45,000, claims she has not been paid a single dime.
See also: London Police suspend Base2Trade
Detective Inspector, Nigel Howard from the City of London Police commented about the UK million pound boiler room:
“Emery spent over a year convincing a number of victims that he was responsibly investing their money. Instead he was simply pocketing everything that his company was supposed to be investing purely for his own selfish gain. This sentencing shows that those who repeatedly commit crime in the City of London will be found out and will end up serving time behind bars.”
Mismanagement of funds
The City of London Police investigation into the UK million pound boiler room revealed that most of the funds received, which were meant for investment purposes, were carelessly utilized. Evidence found in bank statements revealed about a million pounds of victims’ money was paid into EM Trade Capital Ltd’s account. £350,000 of which was then quickly transferred into Emery’s personal account and a further £250,000 was spent on "business expenses".
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