Jailed, wine fraudster who preyed on elderly
A DIRECTOR of a wine company who cheated elderly investors out of almost half a million pounds to fund his lavish lifestyle has been jailed for more than four years.
Customers cold-called by Harry Mosley and his team lost vast amounts by signing up to Optimum Fine Wine.
They were promised financial profit in return for buying, swapping or selling wine through the brokerage firm initially bankrolled by his parents.
Gambled
But the clients, many in their 80s, received little or no money from sales and the rare or vintage Bordeaux they believed they had purchased never materialised.
Instead Mosley, 25, “cut and run”, spending his victims’ cash totalling £424,352 on luxury goods and designer clothes.
He gambled £57,000 with a spread betting firm in 16 months, had a holiday in Dubai and gave his then girlfriend £23,000.
Mosley, of Keston, Kent, admitted conspiracy to commit fraud. Jailing him for four years and four months, Judge Charles Macdonald QC said he had deliberately targeted people who were vulnerable because of their age, illness, disability or bereavement.
“This was a heartless and cruel fraud which gravely damaged a number of lives,” he said.
One victim, an 84-yearold retired college lecturer living in a care home, handed over £200,000 for wine to be purchased and then held in storage.
However, no wine was bought and the widower lost the money, which came from the sale of his flat.
In a victim impact statement read to Maidstone Crown Court, he said he was so ashamed of being taken in he had told no one of his plight.
Another victim, 87, said: “I feel devastated at both the loss of money and my apparent stupidity.”
Craig Harris, defending, said Mosley did not realise the impact his conduct had on victims. “He didn’t see them as people. They were just names on paper.”