Currency trader hit with longer sentence for repayment failure

Currency trader Phillip Boakes has been sentenced to more than two years in prison for failing to pay back cash proceeds from defrauding investors in a forex scam.

Boakes, who was found guilty last year of defrauding at least £3.5m from clients of his forex trading firm Currency Trader Ltd, has not repaid any of the £165,731 confiscation order issued in November.

The 730 days’ sentence imposed at a hearing at the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 15 March is in addition to the 10-year stretch handed down to the Stratford-upon-Avon resident a year ago and upheld in the court of appeal.

Even after the imprisonment, Boakes will continue to be liable for the outstanding debt.

Currency Trader advertised to investors on the promise of guaranteed annual returns of 20% or more, though Boakes was not authorised to accept deposits by the Financial Conduct Authority, who said his pledge of guaranteed returns "was a fiction".

In pyramid scheme fashion, Boakes paid ‘returns’ to earlier investors from funds received from new investors or their own deposits themselves.

"Unfortunately, as is often the case with fraudulent unauthorised investment schemes, Mr Boakes spent much of the monies on a lavish lifestyle and unsuccessful financial trading," the FCA added.

Having already been declared bankrupt, Boakes had no assets available to him to satisfy the confiscation order but cash was expected to be recovered from the value of "tainted gifts" under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

"As such, Mr Boakes was ordered to pay a sum equal to the value of the gifts he made to others. All monies recovered from Mr Boakes will be used to compensate the victims of his crimes," the regulator concluded.