Conman who swindled ethical investors out of £1.6million is jailed (2024)

• Matthew Ames, 38, cheated investors out of a total of £1.6million
• He promised backers quick returns if they gave cash for ethical schemes
• Instead he used the money to fund life of luxury, including Lamborghini
• Used string of celebrities to front fraudulent companies at events
  
• Forestry for Life as represented by James Middleton at 2010 trade fair
• He was on work experience and had no other connection to the company
  
• Some lost their entire life savings and pensions in the scam

By Chris Pleasance

Published: 18:02 GMT, 21 March 2014 | Updated: 19:27 GMT, 21 March 2014

A ‘green finance’ boss who hired the brother of the duch*ess of Cambridge to promote a bogus rainforest protection scheme was jailed today.

Matthew Ames, 38, cheated ethical investors out of £1.6m through fake green projects to fund his luxury lifestyle, including buying a Lamborghini sports car, Isleworth Crown Court heard.

His business Forestry For Life, which netted over £400,000 by claiming to protect the Amazon rainforest, was represented by Kate Middleton’s brother James at a trade fair in London in 2010.

Ames also hired England World Cup winner Jack Charlton and sport supremo Sir Rodney Walker to promote Forestry for Life and his other firm, the Investor Club, at events.

The company director used glossy brochures including quotes from Prince Charles and Tony Blair to promote teak plantation schemes in Sri Lanka and investment in the protection of the Brazilian rainforest.

But no land was ever purchased by Ames’ two companies and not a single tree was ever planted.

He even swindled an elderly investor out of £75,000 for a fake tree scheme after claiming the teak market was outstripping that of gold and oil.

Ames blew the cash on sports cars, flying first class around the world and staying in luxury villas in the Caribbean.

A jury of six men and six women at Isleworth Crown Court found Ames guilty of two counts of fraudulent trading by majority verdict.

Today, Judge Paul Dugdale sentenced the con-artist to 40 months imprisonment, saying: ‘You raised money from a number of members of the public, generally speaking those who had savings to invest.

‘They tended to be older but by definition people who have a lump sum to invest tend to be older.

‘What you did was put their savings at risk for your ends, when you had told them what you were going to do with their money.

‘You defrauded them. You told them they would get an immediate 12 per cent return when this was never achievable.

‘I find, from all of the evidence, that you knew it was never achievable and that the representation was simply not true.

‘Some of the money you received was also misused. It was used by you to borrow from the company to purchase an expensive Lamborghini sports car.

‘Many investors lost all of their life savings, many of the investors lost all the money they had invested in their pensions.

‘It is noteworthy that you did visit all of the investors that lost their money.

‘It is something that is to your credit but it remains the fact that the reason they lost the money was due to your fraud.

‘The sentence I would have passed was in the region of five years. I reduce that sentence to 40 months, that is concurrent on both counts.’

Ames, wearing a blue suit and carrying two large overnight bags in preparation for prison, remained emotionless as the sentence was passed.

His mother and other family members watched on from the public gallery.

Prosecutor Antony Swift pressed for a longer sentence, of four to five years, revealing the defendant is already the subject of a 13-year company directorship ban, imposed in 2013.

But defence counsel Adam Budworth argued: ‘This was not a case when the defendant set out with a ‘boiler room’ as it were, with high-pressure sales techniques.

‘2009 to 2010 were desperate times for investors. I hope your honour won’t make Mr Ames a scapegoat of failings in the regulatory system that existed at the time.

‘In short, my submission to your honour is that Mr Ames is not a bad man. He is a good man.

‘The sentence I am seeking from your honour is an exceptional sentence and - I know I have a high and vertiginous slope to climb - that is that your honour suspend this sentence [and] give him a very significant period of unpaid work.

‘He has four children and he is in the process of getting divorced.’

The barrister argued that his client should be allowed to continue work so he could repay his investors quickly.

‘He is able to return to work and earn £10,000 a month.

‘My submission is that the impact of sending this man to prison is to let him off lightly.’

Ames secured a total of over £1.1m in investments into the Investor Club following its launch in August 2008.

Forestry For Life, set up in July 2009, took £400,000 from green investors by purporting to protect the Amazon Rainforest.

James Middleton was photographed representing the green firm at a carbon trading exhibition in London in October 2010 - while Ames was under investigation by the Financial Services Authority.

Mr Middleton had briefly worked with Ames for work experience after becoming involved in the development of Forestry For Life in June 2010.

The company would offer investors carbon credits that would be used to plant trees and offset their carbon footprint, the court heard.

But Forestry For Life was offering credits for rainforest it did not own and the firm rarely gave investors certificates or proof of purchase.

Ames also offered punters high return rates of 15 percent a year on their original investment but returns were often late and not paid in full.

The jury heard that Ames used a Ponzi scheme to cover up the fraud by repaying first investors with new investors’ money.

The company director was finally caught out following an undercover sting by the Basildon Echo in August 2010 in which a reporter was mis-sold carbon credits.

The article led to the FSA investigating Ames’ firms - both run from a converted barn in Laindon, Essex.

Both Forestry For Life and Investor Club were placed into liquidation in March 2011 with combined debts of more than £1.6m.

Ames, the son of David Ames, 62, the boss of Caribbean property developer Harlequin Ames, was arrested in September 2011 following a referral from the FSA to City of London Police’s specialist fraud unit.

Giving evidence Matthew Ames claimed he was ‘this close’ to selling his business to Barclays Bank before he was shut down by the authorities.

The green finance boss told jurors that he was not able to plant 5,000 tree saplings in Sri Lanka because he could not secure the ‘right’ land.

He also claimed that every penny of the tens of thousands of pounds that he invoiced his firms for on business expenses were ‘perfectly legitimate’.

Ames spent investors’ cash on meals at the exclusive Ivy in the West End and at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, alongside stays at the Savoy, the Hilton, and the Mandarin Oriental - a five-star hotel in Hong Kong.

He also invoiced Forestry For Life and the Investor Club for a stay at the Upper House in Hong Kong and tickets to a Manchester United game at Old Trafford.

Jurors also heard of Ames’ boasts to potential ethical investors.

In one April 2010 email he wrote: ‘You just caught me coming out of a Lamborghini after ordering my new one.

‘Had a meeting with you the other day and had much to discuss.

‘I’m opening a new office in Dubai alongside ones in Singapore, Dublin, and London and have travelled between India, Singapore, and London’.

Harlequin has allegedly taken an estimated £300m from investors for 6,000 off plan hotel rooms and villas since 2005, but so far built just 300.

The UK sales section of Harlequin went bust in April last year after several investors requested their money back.

Ames, of Thundersley, Essex, denied but was convicted of two counts of fraudulent trading.