David Ames has been jailed for 12 years.

His speciality scam was with the front company Harlequin Group which used celebrity endorsements and aggressive sales tactics to con 8,000 investors out of £226 million.

He secured the backing of tennis star Pat Cash, golfer Gary Player and others and of course they had no idea it was all a scam.

His company had 186 accommodation units to sell, such as beach cabanas, villas and hotel rooms.

But he sold each an average of 40 times over – a total of 8,200 sales.  Those extra sales of non existent properties and hotel rooms were his profits.  It could be called a Ponzi scheme.

The customers of course got nothing and it was only a matter of time before he was caught and convicted.

He was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

That is little comfort to the many people who lost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds. In many cases that was their life savings, put down expecting a retirement home but instead being conned out of everything.

Some ‘lucky’ losers may get as much as 2% of their capital back.

Be very careful who you invest with and place your trust in celebrity endorsements- they are paid advertisers.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.