A STOCKBROKER who defrauded some of Britain’s shrewdest business people – including stagecoach tycoon Sir Brian Souter and his sister Ann Gloag – was jailed yesterday for 13 years.
Nicholas Levene, 48, orchestrated a lucrative Ponzi scheme, living the high life and raking £316 million into his bank accounts between April 2005 and September 2009.
He was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court, in London, yesterday after he admitted defrauding a series of high-fliers, that also included Richard Caring, owner of The Ivy and Le Caprice restaurants in London’s West End; and Russell Bartlett, director of the R3 Investment Group and former owner of Hull City Football Club.
Levene, nicknamed Beano because of his childhood love of the comic book, was a successful City worker with an estimated wealth of between £15m and £20m in 2005.
But he was addicted to gambling, spending fortunes on spread betting, and had an insatiable taste for luxury.
Levene, who has been seen by psychiatrists from The Priory, admitted one count of false accounting, one of obtaining a money transfer by deception, and 12 counts of fraud.
The amount attributed to Levene’s false accounting was £32,352,270. But with his
customers’ lost profits, the amount shot up to a total of £101,685,406.
Serious Fraud Office investigators discovered that during the four years of 48-year-old Levene’s offending, he paid out £310 million from his accounts.
With his network of contacts and strong reputation, Levene won people’s faith with seemingly concrete investment deals from which he would take a commission or fee.
The married father of three took millions of investors’ funds, promising to invest it in lucrative rights-issue releases from companies such as HSBC, Lloyds TSB, and the mining companies Xstrata and Rio Tinto.