A legal bid to recover £21 million from a convicted north-east conman who spent his ill-gotten gains on a lavish lifestyle has made “considerable progress”, a court has heard.
Prosecutors are attempting to seize the money which Alistair Greig made from masterminding a Ponzi scheme that scammed 297 people.
Greig, 68, formerly of Cairnbulg in Aberdeenshire, illegally obtained more than £13 million by fraud between August 2001 and October 2014.
Investors were scammed into placing funds in “guaranteed” high-interest accounts but Greig spent their money on top-of-the-range cars, English Premiership football matches and horse race meetings.
His trial at the High Court in Edinburgh is thought to be one of Scotland’s biggest ever fraud cases.
During proceedings, advocate depute Steven Borthwick told jurors that Greig had used the money entrusted to him as “his own personal slush fund”.
He was originally jailed for 14 years for the crime in 2020, but his sentence was reduced on appeal the following year to a 10-year prison term.
Prosecutors brought a proceeds of crime action against Greig, seeking to recover his ill-gotten profits.
They reckoned he had made more than £21 million, which they sought to take back.
‘Considerable progress’ during talks
During the latest in a series of hearings in the action at the High Court in Edinburgh, defence counsel Ronnie Renucci QC said: “This is a particularly complex case, coming as it does on the back of a multi-million pounds fraud.”
But he added that “considerable progress” has been made following talks over both the criminal benefit figure and the available amount for a confiscation order.
A two-day hearing has been set for the end of next month to determine the outcome of the action and the defence counsel said he was not making a motion to have that discharged at this stage.
He said further issues had to be resolved but it might be that the only matter that remained at issue was alleged “tainted gifts” made by Greig.
Lavish lifestyle
The court heard that it was hoped that a precognition could be taken from Greig to provide an explanation for the alleged tainted gifts which the Crown could consider.
The judge, Lady Drummond, set a further hearing in two weeks’ time in the hope that matters for the determination hearing at the end of September could be narrowed between the parties.
Jurors at Greig’s trial heard that he used sums invested in his fraudulent scheme to fund a lavish lifestyle, buying top-of-the-range cars and enjoying no expense spared trips to English Premiership football matches and horse race meetings.
The Press and Journal exposed the details of Greig’s crimes as boss of Midas Financial Services (Scotland), along with a raft of failings from a financial regulator, in a six-part series called King of the Swindlers.
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