UK sentences 2 men to prison over $2M cold-calling crypto scam

The UK has sentenced two men to a combined total of 12 years in prison after they admitted to running a crypto scheme that stole over 1.5 million British pounds ($2 million) by cold-calling victims

The Financial Conduct Authority said on Friday that a central London court handed the scheme’s operators, Raymondip Bedi and Patrick Mavanga, their sentences after the pair pleaded guilty to multiple charges in November.

Bedi was sentenced to five years and four months behind bars, while Mavanga was sentenced to six years and six months.

“Bedi and Mavanga lured investors with promises of high returns on crypto investments, but their schemes were nothing but a callous scam,” Steve Smart, the FCA’s joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said at the time of the pair’s conviction in November.

Pair ran cold-calling crypto con

The FCA said in November that between February 2017 and June 2019, the pair were part of a group that would cold-call people to direct them to a “professional-looking website where they were offered high returns for fake investments in crypto.”

The duo managed to defraud at least 65 investors out of just over 1.54 million British pounds ($2.1 million) over that time.

Source: Financial Conduct AuthorityThe money was sent to companies they operated — Astaria Group LLP, CCX Capital and authorized clones of the firms Ian Buckley Financial Services and Capital Partners Group.

Duo were “leading players” in scam

In sentencing on Friday, the FCA said Southwark Crown Court Judge Griffiths remarked that Bedi and Mavanga “were both leading players in a conspiracy whereby the victims of the fraud were persuaded to invest in cryptocurrency consultancy”

“You conspired to drive a coach and horses through the regulatory system,” he reportedly told the pair.

Related: 5 ‘insidious’ crypto scams to watch out for this year

The FCA’s Smart said the pair “ruthlessly defrauded dozens of innocent victims, and it is right that they have received these prison sentences.”

Bedi and Mavanga pled guilty to crypto scheme

The two men were first charged in April 2023. The FCA said in November last year that Bedi pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and conspiracy to breach the UK’s financial services laws.

Mavanga similarly pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to breach finance laws, along with admitting to possessing fake identification documents with an improper intention.

He was also convicted by a jury of perverting the course of justice for deleting phone call recordings after Bedi was arrested in March 2019.

At the time, a jury did not reach a verdict on a third unnamed defendant, and they would face a retrial in September, while Rowena Bedi, a fourth person charged in connection with the scheme, was acquitted of a single money laundering charge, the FCA said.

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