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Three jailed for £10m Majorca Ponzi fraud | Three jailed for £10m Majorca Ponzi fraud |
(35 minutes later) | |
Two men and a woman have been jailed for cheating British ex-pats in Majorca out of £10m, in a Ponzi scheme. | |
John Hirst, 61, of Huddersfield Road, Brighouse, West Yorkshire, was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court to nine years for his part in the fraud. | |
His wife, Linda Hirst, 61, was told she would serve two-and-a-half years for money laundering. | His wife, Linda Hirst, 61, was told she would serve two-and-a-half years for money laundering. |
Accountant Richard Pollett, 70, of Poole, Dorset, was jailed for six-and-a-half years. | |
John and Linda Hirst enjoyed luxury holidays and lavish wedding celebrations in Las Vegas and Majorca with the proceeds of the scheme. | |
Ponzi schemes pay returns to investors from money paid by other investors, rather than profits. | |
'Get rich quick' | |
Hirst, a former insurance salesman, was convicted for fraudulently taking redundancy money from former Yorkshire miners in the 1990s. | |
He set up an eight-year Ponzi scheme with Pollett in Majorca, promising British people quick returns on their investments. | |
However, the money was not properly invested but instead was spent on financing a lavish lifestyle for Hirst and his estranged wife, the court heard. | |
Judge Jonathan Durham-Hall QC said those targeted by the pair were mainly ordinary, hard-working people who put their pensions and savings into the scheme after being promised huge returns and a risk-free guarantee. | |
Many were elderly or divorced and all were decent and trusting, he said. | |
Judge Durham-Hall said to Hirst: "You wanted it all - get rich quick. | |
"You had the greed and the desire for the high life, which overcame all morality." | "You had the greed and the desire for the high life, which overcame all morality." |
The judge told Hirst and Pollett: "You are through and through common criminals. What you did, and what makes this case of the utmost gravity, was brutal, callous and cruel. You are corrupt. | |
"This was an appalling and shocking course of conduct in which so many were targeted and so many have, in effect, had the remainder of their lives shattered and ruined." |