A former footballer who tricked his family and friends into investing a total of more than £15 million in a foreign currency exchange scam has been jailed for seven-and-a-half years. Ex-Charlton Athletic player Richard Rufus, 48, spent hundreds of thousands of pounds funding his own lifestyle after convincing those close to him that their payment would be low risk and high return.
He used his status as a former sportsman to give the impression he was wealthy and successful, when in reality he was failing to make a profit from his trading activities. Rufus claimed he was an experienced foreign exchange broker, but was in fact using his victims' money to reimburse those who had paid in as part of a pyramid scheme.
He told one victim that he only traded 5% of the capital investment, which meant 95% would have been retained safely - reducing the risk of incurring large losses. Of the £15 million paid to accounts controlled by Rufus, investors received back a total of around £7.6 million.
