The managing director of a financial services firm has been jailed for 14 years after plundering north-east investors’ pension pots and life savings in a massive fraud to fund his affluent lifestyle.
Alistair Greig, 66, carried out a Ponzi scam sucking in dozens of individuals to place their funds in so called “guaranteed” high-interest accounts.
He defrauded investors in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Lincolnshire out of more than £13 million between 2001 and 2014 by taking money which he falsely claimed to have placed in high-interest bank accounts through his firm Midas Financial Solutions, based in Aberdeen.
Lord Tyre said in sentencing at the High Court in Edinburgh: “Most of all 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.”
Some may now recover some of their losses through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
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The judge said: “You will now have ample time to reflect on the harm you have caused to others.
“Although it is not the reasons why I selected it, the period of 14 years happens to amount to around one month for each of the victims of your fraud.”
Greig was earlier unanimously found guilty of obtaining £13,281,671.25 by fraud through his scheme between August 2001 and October 2014.
He was also convicted of breaching financial services and markets legislation and converting and transferring £5.7m in criminal property.
He had denied the offences.
Greig, formerly of Cairnbulg, in Aberdeenshire, who was latterly residing at London Road in Boston, in Lincolnshire, used the money to fund investments in property, treated himself to high-end Bentley and Range Rover vehicles and spent lavishly on trips to Old Trafford to see Manchester United.
Defence counsel Stephen O’Rourke QC said Greig continued to maintain his innocence but empathized with those who lost out following the collapse of Aberdeen-based Midas.
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