Solar scam pair jailed for fraud
It’s taken years, but I was delighted to see David Black, aka David Diaz, and his brother Ludovic finally jailed last week.
I’ve got a long history with this pair, telling in 2011 how “failed footballer turned failed human being” Diaz ran an £18million burglar alarm rip-off.
For some reason lawyers weren’t happy when I later linked the former Motherwell player with a supposed green electricity firm, Solar Energy Savings.
“Mr Diaz is neither a director, officer, employee or shareholder of the company,” lawyers stormed, saying it must just be coincidence that Diaz’s Bentley with a personalised number plate was seen parked outside its offices.
In fact, the Black brothers were up to their necks in a new scam.
Solar Energy Savings claimed to be a “highly reputable entrepreneurial marketleading business” but was as bent as the burglar alarm operation, raking in £17million from householders with lies about government grants and a cashback scheme.
They disappeared after the Serious Fraud Office charged five alleged accomplices with conspiracy to defraud.
Both were caught in Cheshire earlier this year at a routine police traffic stop after seven months on the run.
Ludovic Black has now been jailed for seven years six months, David Diaz for six years and six months.
Four others were jailed for a total of 16 years and a fifth was acquitted in a trial at Liverpool crown court.
Around 1,500 people were conned in paying up to £20,000 for the solar panel systems.
“These men built predatory schemes to steal thousands from the hard-earned savings of vulnerable people while pretending to offer them a chance to improve their own financial security,” said Lisa Osofsky, Director of the Serious Fraud Office.
And to think that lawyers for Solar Energy Savings accused me of tarnishing its reputation.
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