Two more years in jail for con man who pocketed £5m — and paid back just £1,000

A ROGUE trader who blew more than £2m on casino trips, New York holidays and vintage champagne has been jailed for another two years.

Alex Hope, 27, was originally sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding investors who believed he was trading £5.5m of their money on the financial markets.

But instead the party-boy splurged on nights out with footballers, and even spent £125,000 on a bottle of the world’s most exclusive champagne.

He was pictured with celebrities including reality TV star Layla Flaherty (pictured) and popped the cork on champagne for Manchester City footballers Joe Hart and Adam Johnson, and Manchester United star Wayne Rooney’s wife Coleen.

Hope, a former Wembley Stadium catering manager, also spent £1m at the Palm Beach Casino, a lavish Mayfair venue he visited more than 81 times.

But in 2015 his big spending caught up with him and he was handed a prison sentence and £2.2m of his cash was frozen. He was also ordered to pay back £166,696 to compensate the victims of his crimes.

However, yesterday it was revealed the conman has repaid just £1,000 of the amount he owed, and 603 days was added to his existing sentence.

Hope encouraged more than 100 investors to hand over their cash by pretending to be a wildly successful financial whizzkid. In fact, he was operating a Ponzi scheme where he invested just 12pc of the millions handed to him.

When he did trade, he lost almost all of the money in his accounts and he used new money to pay those who wished to withdraw their funds.