UK authorities have jailed a pair of criminals for cold-calling 65 victims and convincing them to invest in a fake crypto consultancy firm.
Raymondip Bedi and Patrick Mavanga "conspired to drive a coach and horses through the regulatory system," Judge Martin Griffiths said at Southwark Crown Court sentencing last week.
The pair ran their scam between 2017 and 2019 under company names including CCX Capital and Astaria Group LLP, eventually stealing $2.03 million (£1.5 million).
Both men pleaded guilty to fraud and related charges, including money laundering and possession of false identification documents. Mavanga received a separate conviction for perverting the course of justice after deleting phone recordings linked to the scheme.
Mavanga was jailed for six years and six months, while Bedi was sentenced to five years and four months in jail.
Blurred lines
The case forms part of a wider sweep by UK authorities targeting financial crimes that blur the lines between regulated markets and loosely policed digital platforms.
Last week, a UK court sentenced two siblings to prison for orchestrating an insider trading scheme that netted nearly $1.35 million (£1 million) by exploiting gaps between traditional finance and crypto-style trading apps.
The case centered on Redinel Korfuzi, an analyst at Janus Henderson, who used his position to feed his sister advance notice of 13 confidential share placements. Authorities found the pair coordinated trades from their shared London flat during the lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Using WhatsApp and Telegram to time short bets, the Korfuzis utilized CFD (Contract for Difference) apps and spread betting platforms that allowed users to bet on whether stock prices would rise or fall without actually buying the shares.
The brother and sister duo "exploited their privileged position and the confidential inside information they had access to," Steve Smart, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight for the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority, said in a statement. "They rigged the system to satisfy their greed."
Investigators alleged the two of spreading trades across multiple accounts, including one opened by Redinel’s personal trainer, to avoid detection. Only the matching IP address and synchronized trading patterns exposed the scope of the conspiracy.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) also uncovered $357,000 (£263,000) in unexplained cash, some of which was held in a West End safe deposit box.
The siblings claimed the funds came from Albanian workers sending remittances, but the jury rejected the explanation as fiction.
“Everything you worked for is now gone because you are and will remain convicted fraudsters,” Judge Milne KC wrote in sentencing comments.
While the two appeared to be "intelligent and financially aware individuals" and "knew exactly what they were doing," neither "has expressed any remorse," Judge Milne KC added.
Confiscation proceedings in both the Korfuzi and Bedi-Mavanga cases are ongoing. Decrypt has reached out to the FCA for comment and will update this article should they respond.
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