Three held over €25m fraud

THREE men have been arrested over a suspected €25 million banking fraud in Brittany.

The men, based in Lorient, Morbihan, have been accused of what prosecutor Alexis Bouroz called a Madoff-type pyramid scheme, in which they persuaded about 200 people to part with sums of more than €10,000, with one victim paying out €1m.

Like the victims of notorious American conman, Bernie Madoff and Graham Templeton in the Dordogne, the victims had thought they were investing their money in high-interest accounts – paying up to 20 per cent interest – held by a Swiss company.

Newspaper Ouest France said that the victims were from Brittany, Pays de la Loire and the south-west.

The three men organised meetings at Vannes and Lorient where they persuaded the victims to invest in the false accounts. The money was sent to banks in the Seychelles, where it was used to pay out the money owed to previous “investors”.

Mr Bouroz said that several of the victims had been ruined, with some even selling their houses to finance their investment.

The scheme was spotted by the Tracfin anti-money laundering agency, which noticed large money transfers from Brittany and sounded the alert last July.

All three suspected conmen, two from Brittany and the other from Pau, have been accused of organised fraud, money laundering and trading illegally as bankers. They face a minimum of five years in jail if found guilty.

Dordogne fraudster Graham Templeton was sentenced to two years’ jail for swindling eight people out of €2m in 2009. He was not jailed immediately because of prison overcrowding, and when he finally went to prison he served only four months.

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