British forex chief convicted of masterminding multi-million ‘Ponzi’-style scheme.

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A former financier who defrauded investors by promising them ‘substantial returns’ was convicted on Monday of masterminding a £70m Ponzi-style scheme.

A jury on Monday found Anthony Constantinou, who ran foreign exchange trading firm Capital World Markets (CWM), guilty on seven counts including misrepresentation fraud, two counts of fraudulent trading and four counts of criminal property transfer.

Prosecutors said in the trial that the 41-year-old, who escaped mid-trial, oversaw a “toxic atmosphere” at the now-defunct CWM, which was at the center of the fraudulent investment scheme. CWM received around £70m between 2013 and March 2015, after which the City of London Police raided its offices. Hundreds of victims lost about 50 million poundsheard the court.

CWM has offered investors, including individuals of the Gurkha and Nepalese communityreturns of about 5% a month, but the account managed by the firm was actually a Ponzi-style scheme with little foreign exchange trading, prosecutors said.

Constantinou, who denied wrongdoing, was present at the start of the trial in March, but did not appear in mid-April and the jury was told he had “voluntarily assented”. He has not testified in his defense of him even though he was legally represented. An international warrant has been issued for his arrest.

Prosecutors said CWM’s finances showed extravagant spending from client funds, including £3m spent by Constantinou on her lifestyle, including her wedding and a CWM launch party. Prosecutors said CWM paid investors directly from the amounts invested and spent the money on other things such as sponsorship deals with Chelsea Football Club and rugby league club Wigan Warriors.

The Southwark Crown Court jury was briefed on the office atmosphere at the CWM in Heron Tower, central London, where Constantinou, son of murdered fashion magnate Aristos Constantinou, was sometimes drunk at work and used to “wield wads of money”. The trial heard that Constantinou had been compared to the “wolf of Wall Street”, but was actually more like the “wolf of Hampstead”, the London borough where he lived.

David DuRose KC, the prosecution, told the trial: “The Crown claims this was a major fraud from start to finish. There were no segregated accounts. And almost no evidence of foreign exchange trading. The prosecutor added that Constantinou – who claimed to be super-rich and told people he was “halfway to being a billionaire” – had control of the bank account into which the money was paid.

A former employee Jay Markham, a stockbroker, who worked for CWM between 2014 and 2015 testified at trial that Constantinou was “very aggressive” and a “micromanager who was constantly ordering people around” and said the kitchen at the staff was full of Gray Goose vodka and champagne, but only Constantinou was allowed to drink during the day and “he was drunk in the office, often very drunk”.

Markham also testified that the words “Ponzi scheme” were “banned in the office” by Constantinou who would have immediately fired anyone using the phrase.

Constantinou’s defense team accepted that there had been fraud in relation to the account managed by CWM, but argued that Constantinou knew nothing about it and that the fraud had been committed by others. No one other than Constantinou has been charged as a result of the CWM investigation.

David Walbank KC, Constantinou’s defense counsel, told the trial in closing speeches it was “ridiculous” for prosecutors to suggest that Constantinou “acted like a lone wolf”. He said Constantinou had behaved “like a selfish, spoiled, entitled man-child” and “he was not a nice man to deal with”, but told the jury “none of that makes him a criminal”.

Detective Inspector Nichola Meghji, of the City of London Police, said: “This has been a long and complex investigation. Anthony Constantinou is a career criminal who wants to make as much money for himself as possible, with no regard for anyone else.

Constantinou will be sentenced in his absence on 9 June. Constantinou’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.