Alexander and others

Stephen Dartnell and George Alexander of Total Asset Limited trading as Total Asset Finance (“TAF”), Carl Cumiskey of H2O Networks Limited (“H2O”) and Simon Mundy who worked for KBC, were sentenced to a total of 44 years in prison, at Southwark Crown Court on 10 February 2017. For a breakdown of counts and sentences, please see below.

On 7 February 2017, all four fraudsters were found guilty of, variously, conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to make corrupt payments, at Southwark Crown Court.

Kerry Lloyd of TAF and Elfed Thomas of H2O were both acquitted.

Dartnell, Alexander and Cumiskey had conspired to create, sign and sell falsely inflated or entirely false contracts from the company H2O to business lenders, Barclays Bank and KBC.

H2O supplied fibre-optic internet cable connections and their unique selling point was to use sewers as channels for these internet cables. H2O targeted public institutions such as local authorities, universities, colleges and the NHS with long-term payment contracts.

Mundy was paid nearly £900,000 as an “inside man” at KBC by Dartnell to approve the funding provided by KBC to TAF. Between 2007 and 2010 this fraud amounted to almost £160m.

The investigation was first announced on 9 January 2015, where Stephen Dartnell and George Alexander and Carl Cumiskey were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation in connection with an investigation into the purchase of a number of agreements by KBC and Barclays Asset Finance from TAL.

On the same day, Simon Mundy was charged with conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation in connection with an investigation into the purchase of a number of agreements by KBC from TAL.

Mr Dartnell and Mr Mundy were also charged with conspiracy to give corrupt payments in connection with the same agreements, which were referred by KBC to the SFO in October 2010. 

For more information, please see the ‘related press releases’ section.

Outcome of criminal case

George Alexander

Guilty on two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

• Count 1 –  8 years in prison 
• Count 2  – 4 years to run consecutively

Stephen Dartnell

Guilty on two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, one count of conspiracy to give corrupt payments.

• Count 1 – 10 years in prison 
• Count 2 –   5 years to run consecutively
• Count 3 –  6 years to run concurrently to count 1

Simon Mundy

Guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and one count of conspiracy to give corrupt payments.

• Count 1 – 7 years in prison 
• Count 2 – 6 years to run concurrently

Carl Cumiskey

Guilty on two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud majority 10-2 on both counts.

• Count 1 – 7 years in prison 
• Count 2 – 3 years to run consecutively

Kerry Lloyd

Not guilty on two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation. Not guilty on one count of conspiracy to give corrupt payments.

Elfed Thomas

Not guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit fraud.

Disqualification of Director

On 10 February 2017, Steven Dartnell was disqualified from acting as a company director for 12 years.

Confiscation

Following hearings at Southwark Crown Court, the men received the following orders:

• Simon Mundy: confiscation order of £726,766.03 imposed on 25 May 2018, subsequently varied to £724,091.71. Paid in full on 5 November 2018
• George Alexander: confiscation order of £52,994.69 imposed on 25 May 2018, subsequently varied to £28,274.09. Paid in full on 23 November 2018
• Carl Cumiskey: confiscation order of £194,343 imposed on 6 April 2018, subsequently increased to £195,212.43. Paid in full on 13 September 2018.
• Stephen Dartnell: £454,045.12 imposed on 6 December 2018, to be paid in 3 months.

The confiscations orders imposed are based upon the available assets. The variations reflect the value for which those assets were realised.