In the Metropolitan Police’s excellent “The Little Book of
Investment Scams” it reports that investments where fraud is commonplace are land,
wine, carbon credits, gold and jewels as well as stocks and shares.
Back
in October 2010, Jim Budd of www.investdrinks.org was warning about Finbow
Wines Ltd. Finbow’s representatives were talking about low value, high volume
Italian wines to be supplied to China and Hong Kong that one could not normally
invest in as an individual “...but demand is high and contracts to supply in
place” with a buy back guarantee after 12 months. Jim Budd said, “All in all this is not a deal I would want to
invest in”.
 |
| DINA SNELLING |
Five months later and investors were beginning to
realise that they were unlikely to get their money back. And earlier this month
Dina Snelling of Invicta
Close, Chislehurst, was jailed for 3 years and 11 months having earlier been
convicted on two counts of conspiracy to defraud.
Along with her brother and cousin,
Snelling tricked a large number of investors into investing in Australian wine,
which would then be sold after a few years in storage.
This started as Nouveau World
Wines Ltd which turned over £2.5 million, followed by Finbow Wines Ltd.
Although the trio sold thousands
of bottles, only a fraction of the total sold was ever produced.
The combined monetary loss was
over £4.5 million.
In sentencing Snelling at
Southwark Crown Court, Judge Michael Grieve said, “These were highly
sophisticated frauds over a very substantial period of time, a total of
two-and-half years.”
“Nouveau investors for the
most part lost the whole of their investment, none certainly had any return.”
“The victims were individuals
and in many instances elderly retired persons looking for a better return on
their modest savings.”
“They were not for the most
part seasoned investors and the conspiracy relied on slick sales techniques.”
“There were a large number of
victims, no figure has been put on it but over the time frame of both frauds it
clearly ran into hundreds.”
“'You personally benefited through
the payment of your rent in Australia, your removal costs when you went to live
in Australia, and some £10,000 to fund your cosmetic surgery.”
Here at Chislehurst, Petts
Wood and Bickley Village News we reckon that instead of spending money on a “boob
job”, Ms Snelling may have been better advised to have had some facial plastic
surgery, judging by the hundreds of individuals that she has scammed.
In the meantime, it’s worth
repeating, “If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is”.
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