Cheshire businessman Peter Barry Maude (58) was sentenced today to 6 years imprisonment for his role in an elaborate investment scheme fraud. He pleaded guilty to two offences of conspiracy to defraud in December 2000.
The hearing today followed a four year investigation by the SFO, Cheshire police and the FBI and prosecutions both in the UK and in the USA.
The fraud
The first offence concerned a bogus scheme that was promoted to investors at conferences on luxurious Caribbean cruise ships and in expensive hotels in Mexico. The conferences were organised by a Dutch businessman Rudolph Linschoten who used the name 'Professor Van Lyn'. Investors paid to attend the week long conferences. They attended lectures on the stock market, banking and offshore investment trusts but the culmination of the trip was a two hour lecture on high yield investment programmes. The programmes were described as being part of a secret investment world in which fabulous fortunes were made by a few brilliant traders such as Maude.
The investors were persuaded that they could benefit from Maude's skill by pooling their money in a company called Sabre Asset Management Limited. The company was called "Sabre" because of Maude's penchant for big game hunting (another company was named "Jaguar Asset Management Limited" and Maude's house, 'Cornercroft', in Wilmslow was bought in the name of "Leopard Asset Management Limited").
Some 195 victims each sent a minimum investment of US $25,000 to an Isle of Man account, operated by Sabre, believing that the funds would be used to buy bank instruments which would then be "traded" with very profitable results. In fact almost as soon as it arrived in the account the money was used to pay for Maude's house in Wilmslow and shooting equipment, including expensive shotguns by Purdey and Holland and Holland and hand made rifles by T & T Proctor. Maude also purchased a Range Rover for himself and cars for his wife and for his children.
Sabre was controlled by a UK solicitor, Marshall Ronald, from his home in Altrincham, Greater Manchester. Ronald was also prosecuted but acquitted by a jury on 23 March 2001. He explained in a 7 week trial that he had been deceived by Maude whose lies he had believed.
The second offence involved a conspiracy with a man from New York, Henry Geier. Maude and Geier persuaded a Singapore businessman to invest US $1.2m in Maude's investment programmes. The two conspirators then divided the money between them. Maude spent his part of the proceeds on high living and luxuries including an MG sports car for his girlfriend, a 26 year old Danish dancer.
Assets to the value of £3 million have been seized in the USA and the UK, amongst them the house bought by Maude, his guns, shooting trophies and a number of cars including a Morgan and the MG. The SFO intends to apply for a confiscation order.
Notes to Editors
Counsel for the SFO were: Francis Gilbert QC and Andrew Oldland
The SFO case controller was Stephen Myers.
In February 2000 the SFO discovered that Maude was still committing offences on bail and applied for his bail to be revoked, he has been in prison since then.
Rudolph Linschoten was prosecuted in Orange County, Los Angeles and was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for his part in the fraud. His girlfriend, Freda Freitas, who had also been involved in the fraud, received a suspended sentence. Geier was prosecuted in the USA and is facing a prison sentence.
SFO contact: 020 7239 7004, out of hours mobile: 07767 335020/ 0781 807 6688
