Solicitor jailed over £360k wine scam

A London solicitor and former boss of a sham wine investment company who conned clients out of hundreds of thousands of pounds has been jailed.

Michael Wilson, 44, of Leyton, East London, has been jailed for three years

Michael Wilson, 44, of Leyton, East London, ran Global Wine Investments, which was shut down in 2012.

The company tricked clients into parting with tens of thousands of pounds by telling them they were investing in fine wine. Instead, the company only used a tenth of the money handed over by unknowing members of the public to purchase often inferior wine.

Wilson spent the rest of the cash on staff bonuses and luxuries. All the while, his staff dissuaded clients from trying to sell their non-existent purchases by getting them to invest even more money.

Investors’ losses totalled £360,000, with the Crown Prosecution Service adding that half of the lost money went to Wilson himself.

During his trial at the Old Bailey, Wilson told the jury that he had been negligent rather than fraudulent, blaming his employees who he said were acting out of his control.

He was sentenced at the Old Bailey this week after being found guilty of possession of stolen property, as reported by the Law Society Gazette. The jury failed to reach a guilty verdict on a separate fraud charge, which will remain on file.

Wilson will pay back investors £50,000, however his Honour Judge Cooke noted that some of Wilson’s victims were quite elderly and repayment might be ‘too late for them’.

Sentencing, he said: “You were responsible for a very considerable amount of loss to people who in some cases couldn’t afford to lose the money they have lost. … This is a high culpability case”.

Wilson was sentenced to three years in prison and disqualified him from acting as a company director for seven years.