Conman caught money laundering in house purchase
News Category: Industry News
Published: 20-Aug-2010
A conman has been jailed for 11 years after wordwide property and finance scams worth an estimated £23m.
Eric Fitzpatrick Danison, 51, also known as Patrick Danson, was caught when he tried to launder £1.5m through the purchase of an eight-bedroom country house, Passenham Manor, in Northamptonshire.
Posing as a businessman with a phoney financial services company called Amkel Capital in Canary Wharf, he had convinced his victims he could give them access to credit worth millions of pounds for an advance fee.
Instead, he stole their money and diverted it into Swiss bank accounts.
He also ran a series of fake property and investment firms, defrauding people across the UK and US. One Harrogate man was tricked into parting with £60,000.
The police investigation found that one victim had been forced to sell his house to cover his losses.
At Birmingham Crown Court, Danison pleaded guilty to numerous accounts of fraud. As well as the 11-year sentence, he was disqualified from being a company director for 15 years and given a Serious Crime Prevention Order for 15 years, which will restrict the business activity he can carry out once out of prison.
A police spokesman said: “Danison is a conman who operated on a truly international scale.”
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