Builder jailed for £2.5 million swindle (From Daily Echo)

Builder jailed for £2.5 million swindle

1:10pm Saturday 11th February 2012 in News

A FORMER Hampshire builder has been jailed for more than six years in America for scamming millions of dollars out of his British victims.

Derick Coles, who fled bankruptcy in England to start a new life in the US, admitted swindling cash from about a dozen couples as part of an immigration fraud.

The 65-year-old, once a member of Lymington’s Round Table and boss of two New Forest construction firms, disappeared with the equivalent of £2.5m from those caught up in his New Horizons Group Ltd con.

His scam involved promising to help people relocate to the US by offering a number of services. But he closed down the firm overnight and made off with cash that had been put in supposedly secure accounts.

Victims launched a bid to track him down and Coles, who once lived with his family in Broadmead, Sway, was eventually arrested by US marshals in Atlanta, Georgia, last year.

He admitted one count each of wire and immigration fraud dating back to 2006.

At a federal court in Tampa, Florida, a judge jailed him for six-and-a-half years, fining him $15,000 and making a forfeiture judgement of $350,000.

Judge Whittemore also ordered compensation of $4.2m. The sentencing was witnessed by a number of the victims he had conned.