A struck off solicitor has been jailed for washing the dirty cash of organised criminals running an international timeshare fraud scheme.
Anthony Lea, 66, admitting laundering £465,000 for the gang who used cold callers promising that they had timeshare buyers lined up for a quick sale. Lea, from West End Road, St Helens was even found to have handed over bags stuffed with £180,000 in cash at motorway service stations.
A Trading Standards investigation began in 2016 after a tip-off from a pensioner in West Berkshire, but it soon became clear there were hundreds of timeshare and holiday club policyholders victimised by the organised crime group. The masterminds of the operation, who have never been identified, posed as so-called 'resale firms' Simple Timeshare Sales and Marketing, Find Me Travel and UK Holiday Consultants.
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The victims were often older people anxious to sell their memberships because they could no longer travel, but who still faced escalating annual maintenance fees under their contracts. The firms made attractive offers to buy timeshare policies and asked for advance fees of between £1,000 and £2,000. However after payment, the victims found they could not get in touch with those companies, the Mirror reports.
They were then contacted by a seemingly unconnected company which offered not only to sell back the policy but also to recover the advanced fees. Despite consumers paying thousands of pounds to these firms, the investigation found no evidence that any policies were actually sold.
Lea was nabbed alongside Ian Hollis, 60, who owns a bar in Calahonda in Spain. After a lengthy investigation Lea pleaded guilty to four counts of acquiring criminal property at Reading Crown Court in 2019 while a trial date for Hollis was set for June 2020 but did not get underway until November 2021 due to covid-related interruptions.
Hollis did not appear for his trial and a previous attempt to get him to fly back to England for hearings were scuppered when he presented a positive covid test that turned out to be fake. He did eventually offer a guilty plea but again failed to show up for his sentencing last week and a warrant for his arrest has been issued.
At a sentencing hearing last week, Lee Reynolds, prosecuting, said: "The victims were cold called by telephone with seemingly attractive offers to purchase their properties, for which of course the fraudsters wanted a fee payable in advance of between £1,000 and £1,500, sometimes higher.
“The payments were taken by card or bank transfer. After that the apparent queue of people looking to buy these properties did not materialise and the companies could not be contacted.
“A very serious aggravating factor is that the victims’ details were either exploited by the same fraudsters again under a different name or by other fraudsters, promising that they did in fact have a bunch of customers waiting to buy their holiday club or timeshare, and that they would recover the money previously paid. There’s no evidence that anyone recovered any money or sold their policy.”
The gang recruited Lea and Hollis, who offered to allow their bank accounts to be used to launder money for a fee. Lea processed £465,000 while Hollis handed over £74,000, which he withdrew from a bank in Gibraltar and handed over to a person in Spain he claimed to know only as “Dave”.
The court was told that Lea was struck-off the roll of solicitors in 2001 for using client money for his own benefit. Kate O’Rayhallaigh, defending Lea, said that he did not take part in defrauding the victims and "turned a blind eye to what was going on".
That brought the response from Judge Sarah Campbell: “If he’s handing over £180,000 to people at petrol stations it’s difficult to accept someone just turning a blind eye, even more so when you are dealing with someone who used to be a solicitor.”
The judge told him in sentencing: “You had a leading role in the offence of money laundering, you appear to be a central fulcrum in the solicitors, estates agents and other people involved.” The court was told that the gang hoped the amount defrauded from each victim would be too small to interest the police or other authorities.
They were proved wrong when a local resident complained to West Berkshire Trading Standards, resulting in a three year investigation that discovered hundreds of people had been defrauded. Victims across the UK were targeted repeatedly with offers to sell their holiday and timeshare club memberships,” said Trish Burls, Chair of the National Trading Standards Tri Region Investigation Team, after the case.
“As a result of the hard work and dedication of all involved, both defendants pleaded guilty to several counts of money laundering between them totalling almost £540,000.”
After the case the Mirror tracked Hollis down to a bar in Spain as he opened up a pub called Our Bar. He first claimed to be called John before admitting he was Ian Hollis.
Asked why he had not gone to court, he blamed health conditions including high blood pressure, a bad knee, Covid, “and stuff like that”. He said he got involved with the scam after "Dave", a drinker at Our Bar, asked if he wanted to make some extra money.
Hollis said: "I was on the bones of my arse. I needed money." He said he handed over the cash in batches of £8,000 at "various places" near Calahonda and admitted suspecting that he was laundering money for criminals.
he said. “Did I have an inkling? Probably. All I did was take money from a business and put the money in my account. I kept 5%. I took the cash out and I gave it to Dave."
Asked about the victims of the resale frauds, he said: “My heart goes out for them. I'm just a normal man in the street, I got caught up in a s*** storm. I was getting paid and I was skint. Yeah, it's horrible. I genuinely didn't know what was going on."
He added that he plans to appeal his 18 month sentence. In sentencing at Reading Crown Court, Her Honour Judge Sarah Campbell said: “I am afraid Mr Hollis has to understand he is required to surrender to this court. Should Mr Hollis return to this country he will of course be taken to prison straight away.”
Lea was jailed for three years while Hollis received an 18 month sentence passed down in his absence.
