A BRITISH fraudster has been slapped with a ten yr jail sentence over a weird £73million wine rip-off.
Mastermind James Wellesley, 59, alongside his confederate and fellow Briton Stephen Burton, 61, defrauded not less than 190 victims from world wide with pretend guarantees of luxurious vino for £12,000 a bottle.
On Monday, a New York court docket ordered Wellesley — who can also be identified by the aliases Andrew Fuller and Andrew Templar — to a decade behind bars for wire fraud conspiracy.
He was additionally advised to pay £740,000 ($1million) in forfeiture.
Between June 2017 and February 2019, Wellesley — from Tunbridge Wells in Kent — offered himself because the chief monetary officer and operations supervisor of Bordeaux Cellars.
He and Burton claimed to be representing a cohort of wonderful wine collectors and had been brokering loans on their behalf, The Telegraph reported.
Burton was already a well known determine in London’s wine circles after they started working the Ponzi-style scheme.
The scamming duo attended funding conferences everywhere in the world duping victims into lending money to the high-net-worth wine collectors, promising them common curiosity funds.
A stockpile of uncommon and costly wines — together with Domaine de la Romanée-Conti listed on-line for greater than $17,000 per bottle — was supposedly used as collateral for the loans.
However the vino bottles, together with their collectors, by no means existed.
As an alternative, Wellesley and Burton used incoming mortgage proceeds to make fraudulent curiosity funds to traders and for their very own private bills, prosecutors mentioned.
Wellesley pleaded not responsible in July 2025 after he was extradited from the UK however later modified his plea to responsible.
He has two prior felony convictions within the UK and began the wine scheme shortly after being launched from prison for mortgage fraud, Bloomberg reported.
Decide Pamela Chen mentioned the “brazen” wine fraud “actually destroyed lives”, citing a letter she acquired from a 58-year-old lady with a disabled youngster who misplaced her complete £125,000 ($200,000) financial savings.
Joseph Nocella Jr, the US lawyer for the Jap District of New York, mentioned in court docket on Monday: “Not like a wonderful classic that improves over time, the defendant will spend years in jail to mirror on his fraudulent wine scheme.
“James Wellesley preyed on traders across the globe to induce them to speculate tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} on lies. At the moment’s sentence sends a message to fraudsters that our workplace will prosecute you to the complete extent of the regulation.”
Wellesley’s co-defendant Stephen Burton was extradited from Morocco in 2023 to the US.
He had been attempting to enter the north African nation on a false Zimbabwean passport.
Burton pleaded responsible and agreed to forfeit £19.7million ($26million) and is awaiting sentencing.
