Two brothers have been convicted of fraud and money laundering after taking £750,000 out of a failed peer-to-peer style investment firm.
Peter and Andrew Currie were prosecuted by the Financial Conduct Authority.
At Southwark Crown Court on Monday Peter Currie (59) was convicted by unanimous verdicts of two counts of fraud and one of money laundering while Andrew Currie (57) was convicted of one count of fraud and one of money laundering following a five-week trial.
Andrew Currie was acquitted of one count of fraud.
Before its collapse into administration in February 2018, their firm Collateral offered peer-to-peer style investments on a website which fraudulently claimed it was authorised and regulated by the FCA.
In December 2015 Peter Currie, a Collateral director, swapped the details of a separate company he had agreed to sell – Regal Pawnbrokers Ltd – for the details of Collateral on the FCA register.
Over the following 18 months, the company was advertised as authorised to accept people to invest in loans on the Collateral platform.
In January 2018 the FCA notified Peter Currie that it had uncovered the register change and ordered that Collateral cease unauthorised business. Despite this, Collateral not only continued to receive investments but Peter and Andrew Currie also removed approximately £750,000 from the Collateral client accounts.
At around the same time the Curries appointed, without informing the FCA as required, an administrator and transferred a further £88,000 from Collateral funds.
The FCA said: “The integrity of the FCA Register is vital to consumer protection. The Curries masqueraded as an authorised firm to defraud consumers by falsifying the official record and the jury has quite rightly concluded their conduct was criminal.
“The FCA has invested heavily in the Register to strengthen controls and make it easier for people to use, with more information available to consumers.”
The charges faced by Peter and Andrew Currie were fraud by false representation, contrary to sections 1 and 2 of the Fraud Act 2006; fraud by abuse of position, contrary to sections 1 and 4 of the Fraud Act 2006; and converting criminal property, contrary to section 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2000.
The brothers will be sentenced on 7 July.
