Pension scammers ordered to repay £13.7m taken from victims
24 January 2018
245 members of the public were persuaded via cold-calling and similar techniques to transfer their pension savings into one of 11 scam schemes operated by Friendly Pensions Limited (FPL).
Victims were told that if they transferred their pension pots to the schemes they would receive a tax-free payment commonly described as a “commission rebate” from investments made by the pension scheme – a form of pension scam.
On 23 January 2018 the High Court ruled that the four people who ran a series of scam pension schemes - David Austin, Susan Dalton, Alan Barratt and Julian Hanson - should repay the millions of pounds they took from the schemes over a two-year period (November 2012 to September 2014).
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) had asked the High Court to order the defendants to repay the funds they dishonestly misused or misappropriated from the pension schemes – the first time such an order has been obtained.
Austin laundered funds from the schemes into his bank account and the accounts of family members in the UK, Switzerland and Andorra through a number of businesses that he had set up in the UK, Cyprus and the Caribbean, including FPL.
TPR showed the High Court evidence of how members of Austin’s family had lived a life of luxury using the money – including showing off their spending on expensive goods, ski holidays and trips to Dubai and the Mediterranean on social media sites.
Dalriada, the independent trustee appointed by TPR to take over the running of the schemes, will now be able to seek the confiscation of the scammers’ assets for the benefit of their victims.
Full details of how the scam worked have been issued in a TPR press release which also details case studies from three of the victims explaining just how they were conned into transferring their funds.