Currency trader has vanished along with £130m ($203m) in investors’ cash
A currency trader has vanished along with £130m ($203m) in investors’ cash in an alleged fraud that could be one of the biggest in recent British history.
The Daily Telegraph reports that Joe Lewis, 59, is being investigated by police over almost $200m which he claimed was in clients’ accounts but now no longer exists. It is rumoured that professional footballers and golfers have lost money in his investment scheme.
In an email sent to clients a fortnight ago, Lewis admitted that his company, JL Trading, had stopped operating in 2009 after suffering heavy losses on disastrous foreign exchange deals.
He confessed in the email that he had continued taking people’s money for the next five years in an attempt to turn his fortunes around, but that all those attempts had failed.
In an email sent a month earlier – in response to growing concern from investors trying to get their money out – he claimed that his company was having ‘a stressful time’ releasing $197m from American brokers because of US red tape.
Source: HITC – Currency trader has vanished along with £130m ($203m) in investors’ cash
