The FCA has secured confiscation orders of £305,284 against Raheel Mirza, Cameron Vickers and Opeyemi Solaja for their roles in an investment fraud.
This amounts to all their remaining assets.
The confiscation proceedings for Reuben Akpojaro have been adjourned to a later date.
The money will be returned to investors at the earliest opportunity. Failure to pay can lead to imprisonment.
Between June 2016 and January 2020 Cameron Vickers, Raheel Mirza, Opeyemi Solaja and Reuben Akpojaro made cold calls to members of the public, using pseudonyms, to convince them to invest with Bespoke Markets Group (BMG). Various UK and offshore companies and bank accounts were set up to try to distance the defendants from the fraud (including Upscale Limited, registered in the Marshall Islands) and to launder money.
They claimed to trade their clients’ monies in ‘Binary Options’ (a type of fixed odds financial betting), when in reality the money was shared among the fraudsters to fund their lifestyles. To encourage people to invest or invest more, BMG offered to match investments with their own funds and refund losses in the first 3-6 months. The investors had access to a sophisticated online platform that appeared to show their funds being traded, however, this was manipulated to show trading activity when there was none.
In 2023 they were convicted and sentenced to a combined 24 and a half years for investment fraud.