Man who duped victims in £13m Ponzi scheme ordered to hand over pension

A former financial services director who was jailed after committing a massive fraud in excess of £13m has agreed to surrender a pension plan to settle a proceeds of crime action brought against him.

Alistair Greig was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment in 2020 after duping victims with a fraudulent Ponzi scheme he operated. The sentence was later reduced to ten years on appeal.

The trial judge who originally jailed him, Lord Tyre, told him: “I take account of the devastating impact that this fraud has had on a very large number of people, whose trust you deliberately and cruelly betrayed for your own personal benefit.”

He said: “You knew that the money you obtained from these people was earning nothing. You helped yourself to it whenever you felt like it.”

“Right until the end you encouraged friends to deposit funds to maintain the pretence, even when you must have known that they would probably lose everything,” said Lord Tyre.

The judge said victims “lost pensions and life savings because they believed what you told them about where their precious money was to be invested, and your false guarantees as to its safety”.

He said: “The amount that you helped yourself to in order to fund a lavish lifestyle was also extremely large – almost £6m found its way into your own bank accounts.”

Greig, formerly of Cairnbulg, in Aberdeenshire, denied perpetrating the fraud and other offences during a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh but was unanimously found guilty.

Lord Tyre said in sentencing him: “It is all the more astonishing that even now, in your discussion with a social worker who was tasked to prepare a report, you continue to deny responsibility and to claim to be dumbfounded at having been convicted.”

The judge said: “If that is truly your position I can only conclude that you are as adept at deceiving yourself as you were at deceiving the victims of your fraudulent Ponzi scheme.”

Greig used his scheme to get dozens of individuals to place funds in accounts that were claimed to “guarantee” high interest returns as he funded his own lavish lifestyle. He used his ill gotten gains to fund investments in property, including a holiday home in Cornwall, and a classic car business.

He treated himself to a Bentley and Range Rover and trips to Old Trafford to see Manchester United and race meetings at Ascot and Cheltenham.

Since his conviction prosecutors have pursued an action against him under proceeds of crime legislation seeking to recover crime profits from him.

During a hearing last year the court was told that the benefit of his criminal conduct was £13,281,671, but only £814.33 was available to be seized at that time. Prosecutors could return to court if more assets, resulting from crime, were identified.

During a brief hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh on Wednesday, advocate depute Desmond Cheyne KC told a judge that a settlement has now been reached in the action and asked for an order to be granted to secure funds in a pension plan for Greig to be handed over within six months.

He said these were “additional sums” which Greig agreed fell within the terms of a confiscation order.

Judge Thomas Welsh KC said he would make the order sought and that the money would be transferred to the Crown. The pension fund is understood to be worth more than £32,000.