Three Indian-origin businessmen who swindled banks in Britain and the United States of more than 300 million pounds by pretending to run a worldwide metal trading empire have been found guilty and face a long term in jail.
Virendra Rastogi (39), Anand Jain (43) and Gautam Majumdar (57), ex-directors of metal trading business RBG Resources, were convicted at London's Southwark Crown Court of conspiracy to defraud and were remanded to custody this week.
Judge James Wadsworth told the three they could expect “long prison terms” when he sentences them on June 5.
The conviction came at the end of a long drawn out international investigation.
When investigators from the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) swooped on Rastogi in his Mayfair apartment here in 2002, he was found shredding wads of documents.
For six years, Rastogi reportedly conned banks into funding non-existent metal trading deals using 324 fake companies that turned out to be based in small flats and shops, with few assets beyond a table and chair.
The address of one company turned out to be a cowshed in India and another was a launderette in America.
Hundreds of millions of dollars and pounds circulated around the globe on the instruction of the conspirators.
"This was a sophisticated and complex enterprise; it continued for over four years and fooled not only the banks but also the auditors," the SFO said after they were convicted.
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