Latest news with #AnthonyConstantinou
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Police tighten net around Britain's Wolf of Wall Street
Police are tightening the net around 'Britain's Wolf of Wall Street', who absconded while on trial for defrauding investors out of £70m in a Ponzi-style scam. An international manhunt is under way for Anthony Constantinou, a 41-year-old City boss from north London convicted of a string of fraud offences at Southwark Crown Court in June 2023. Constantinou, a convicted sex offender, fled the UK before he was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, and has been ordered to pay back £64m or have his sentence doubled. Interpol has issued a silver notice against Constantinou, which will allow British detectives to seize any overseas assets, such as cars or properties, that he owns. He is also the subject of a red notice, giving police in any one of the organisation's 196 member countries the authority to find and arrest him. The investigation is being led by City of London Police, which handles England's most high-profile fraud investigations. Constantinou's whereabouts are unknown, but police previously thought him to be in Turkey or Dubai after he was stopped in Bulgaria with a fake Spanish passport. A death certificate filed last year stated that he died of a heart attack while in Guadalajara, Mexico, but investigators have since claimed that some of the documents contain inaccuracies. The seven-week trial heard that hundreds of investors were duped out of a total of £70m between 2013 and 2015 while Constantinou ran Capital World Markets (CWM). The company promised investors they would receive 60 per cent on what he claimed were 'risk-free' foreign exchange investments of between £50,000 and £100,000. CWM had high-profile sponsorship deals with the Honda Moto GP, Chelsea Football Club, Wigan Warriors rugby league club, Cyclone Boxing Promotions and the London Boat Show. The company paid investors some of their money back and spent the rest. Constantinou spent £2.5m on his 'no expense spared' wedding on the Greek island of Santorini in September 2014, while his son's first birthday party a few days earlier cost more than £70,000. More than £470,000 was paid for private jets to fly him and his associates to Moto GP races across Europe as well as a return flight to Nice for a €150,000 (£130,000) five-day yacht cruise around the Mediterranean to Monaco. The company paid £200,000 each quarter to rent offices in the City's Heron Tower, while nearly £600,000 was spent on just six months rent of Constantinou's large home in Hampstead, north-west London, where his luxury cars were parked in the drive. Dept Commissioner Nik Adams, of the City of London Police, said: 'This is a significant step forward in our ongoing commitment to delivering justice and compensating the many victims of Constantinou. 'We recognise the profound impact this has had on those involved, and we are actively working to ensure they receive the compensation they deserve. 'Through close partnership, working both nationally and with our international counterparts, we will now work to recover potential assets held abroad and apply to confiscate them. 'As the national lead force for fraud, we remain committed in our mission to combat financial crime, and we will continue to support those affected by it.'
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The hunt for Britain's ‘Wolf of Wall Street'
When Ben was convinced by a financial adviser to visit a swanky new trading floor at the top of a City of London skyscraper the Heron Tower, he couldn't believe his luck. Staff promised him returns of 60pc a year if he invested, and told him that the business – Capital World Markets (CWM) – was run by a 'Svengali-type individual who was hugely well-connected'. It sounded to good too be true. That's because it was. On the surface, Anthony Constantinou – the 'Svengali-type' – had made a fortune in a remarkably short amount of time. He had all the trappings of success, spending £600,000 on just six months rent for a home in London, as well as £427,000 on private jet trips, £2.5m on his wedding in Santorini and more than £70,000 on his son's first birthday party. Luxury cars lined the driveway of his rented Hampstead home. But there was one problem: the cash was coming from a multimillion-pound Ponzi-style investment scam, which relied on ordinary savers like Ben to buy into his story. Earlier this month Constantinou, 41, was ordered to pay back £64m or spend 14 more years in prison for his large-scale fraud, but police have no idea where he is. A death certificate filed last year stated that he died of a heart attack while in Guadalajara, Mexico, but investigators have since claimed that some of the documents contain inaccuracies, according to Bloomberg. CWM only operated from late 2013 until early 2015, but in that time captured hundreds of victims. Most were lured through word of mouth, with those who introduced people receiving a cut of the funds – a classic Ponzi trick. Before it all unravelled, prospective investors were told that they were putting money into 'risk-free' transactions on the foreign exchange (FX) markets, usually for a minimum investment of £100,000. In reality it was all a scam, underpinned by the illusion of wealth at the top. 'It was like the 1980s movie Brewster's Millions. [Constantinou] was spending money to create this impression of himself, creating a legend and cult of the individual,' says a source with close knowledge of the former City boss. They likened the atmosphere in his office to the Hollywood film The Wolf Of Wall Street, which chronicled the rise and fall of real-life investment fraudster Jordan Belfort. 'Everyone who spoke to [Constantinou] came away with the view that he was a massive c---. He's an absolute t-----, but he had the chutzpah not to worry about the size of the lies he was telling.' His lies were so convincing that Ben became one of hundreds of people lured in. Many believed that Constantinou was able to personally guarantee the cash because of the supposed wealth inherited from his fashion tycoon father, who was murdered in a case that remains unsolved. Aristos Constantinou, who ran a string of shops in London, was shot dead by masked men on new year's day 1985 at his home on The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead, north London, known as Billionaire's Row. Major CWM sponsorship deals, such as with Chelsea Football Club, also helped give the company the patina of legitimacy. Everything seemed calm, organised and above board. The hospitality was flowing, with potential investors given front-row seats to major events. Constantinou was filmed showing the Princess Royal around the 2015 London Boat Show, which CWM sponsored, just months before its offices were raided. 'It was a clever scam, there's no doubt about it,' says Ben. 'Everything was designed to pull the wool over our eyes.' Staff were told that CWM's investment strategy was simply too 'long and boring' for them to understand. The word 'Ponzi' was also not to be used in the office, with one member of staff allegedly sacked for uttering it in the office kitchen. The atmosphere in the office was said to be intimidating and volatile, with workers belittled by Constantinou and alcohol featuring heavily. In 2016, he was jailed for a year for assaulting two women. A court heard how he pushed a woman up against the frosted glass of the office reception area and went on to grope and kiss her against her will. While on bail for the attack, he assaulted another woman during drinks after a business meeting, shoving a chunk of hot wasabi paste in her mouth. It was around the same time that CWM began to unravel. CWM's Square Mile office was raided by police in 2015 after a tip off and the business shut down. Ben turned out to be one of the lucky ones. Despite seeing returns of 5pc a month after initially putting his cash in, he started to grow suspicious of Constantinou's tale and pulled his money out just before. 'It was too much of a red flag generating that amount of money from the margins – if it was that good it would have been discovered by a hedge fund,' he recalls. Hundreds of others ended up losing their lifetime savings. A person close to some of the victims and their families says: 'There was a retired lorry driver who put all his money in and lost the lot, and a group of Gurkhas who put their retirement funds in and lost the whole shebang.' Constantinou first disappeared in June 2023 when he was found guilty of fraud by false representations, fraudulent trading and money laundering at Southwark Crown Court. He was convicted by a jury in his absence and sentenced to 14 years in jail. Prosecutors estimated that Constantinou made £97m from the scam and recovered a Range Rover, Porsche and CWM-branded motorcycle during their investigations. A confiscation order for £64m was handed down this month. Adrian Foster, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: 'This was a callous scam targeting members of the public. Many people lost their hard-earned money because of Constantinou's greed and false promises in this fake investment scheme.' The fraudster, who uses the aliases Antonis Hadjicostis and Georgios Arnaoutakis, was arrested in Bulgaria in 2023 while trying to enter Turkey with false documents, but was later released. Aside from the death certificate in Mexico, the trail has gone cold. As the hunt for Britain's 'Wolf of Wall Street' continues, those whose lives have been affected by Constantinou's tricks continue to feel haunted by the experience. 'I've been the target of another scam since,' admits Ben. 'So now I do all my own investments – I will not take the advice of anybody from anywhere. There are too many scams out there.' Some names in this article have been changed Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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Telegraph
28-06-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The hunt for Britain's ‘Wolf of Wall Street'
When Ben was convinced by a financial adviser to visit a swanky new trading floor at the top of a City of London skyscraper the Heron Tower, he couldn't believe his luck. Staff promised him returns of 60pc a year if he invested, and told him that the business – Capital World Markets (CWM) – was run by a 'Svengali-type individual who was hugely well-connected'. It sounded to good too be true. That's because it was. On the surface, Anthony Constantinou – the 'Svengali-type' – had made a fortune in a remarkably short amount of time. He had all the trappings of success, spending £600,000 on just six months rent for a home in London, as well as £427,000 on private jet trips, £2.5m on his wedding in Santorini and more than £70,000 on his son's first birthday party. Luxury cars lined the driveway of his rented Hampstead home. But there was one problem: the cash was coming from a multimillion-pound Ponzi-style investment scam, which relied on ordinary savers like Ben to buy into his story. Earlier this month Constantinou, 41, was ordered to pay back £64m or spend 14 more years in prison for his large-scale fraud, but police have no idea where he is. A death certificate filed last year stated that he died of a heart attack while in Guadalajara, Mexico, but investigators have since claimed that some of the documents contain inaccuracies, according to Bloomberg. Classic Ponzi trick CWM only operated from late 2013 until early 2015, but in that time captured hundreds of victims. Most were lured through word of mouth, with those who introduced people receiving a cut of the funds – a classic Ponzi trick. Before it all unravelled, prospective investors were told that they were putting money into 'risk-free' transactions on the foreign exchange (FX) markets, usually for a minimum investment of £100,000. In reality it was all a scam, underpinned by the illusion of wealth at the top. 'It was like the 1980s movie Brewster's Millions. [Constantinou] was spending money to create this impression of himself, creating a legend and cult of the individual,' says a source with close knowledge of the former City boss. They likened the atmosphere in his office to the Hollywood film The Wolf Of Wall Street, which chronicled the rise and fall of real-life investment fraudster Jordan Belfort. 'Everyone who spoke to [Constantinou] came away with the view that he was a massive c---. He's an absolute t-----, but he had the chutzpah not to worry about the size of the lies he was telling.' His lies were so convincing that Ben became one of hundreds of people lured in. Many believed that Constantinou was able to personally guarantee the cash because of the supposed wealth inherited from his fashion tycoon father, who was murdered in a case that remains unsolved. Aristos Constantinou, who ran a string of shops in London, was shot dead by masked men on new year's day 1985 at his home on The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead, north London, known as Billionaire's Row. Major CWM sponsorship deals, such as with Chelsea Football Club, also helped give the company the patina of legitimacy. Everything seemed calm, organised and above board. The hospitality was flowing, with potential investors given front-row seats to major events. Constantinou was filmed showing the Princess Royal around the 2015 London Boat Show, which CWM sponsored, just months before its offices were raided. 'It was a clever scam, there's no doubt about it,' says Ben. 'Everything was designed to pull the wool over our eyes.' Staff were told that CWM's investment strategy was simply too 'long and boring' for them to understand. The word 'Ponzi' was also not to be used in the office, with one member of staff allegedly sacked for uttering it in the office kitchen. Red flags The atmosphere in the office was said to be intimidating and volatile, with workers belittled by Constantinou and alcohol featuring heavily. In 2016, he was jailed for a year for assaulting two women. A court heard how he pushed a woman up against the frosted glass of the office reception area and went on to grope and kiss her against her will. While on bail for the attack, he assaulted another woman during drinks after a business meeting, shoving a chunk of hot wasabi paste in her mouth. It was around the same time that CWM began to unravel. CWM's Square Mile office was raided by police in 2015 after a tip off and the business shut down. Ben turned out to be one of the lucky ones. Despite seeing returns of 5pc a month after initially putting his cash in, he started to grow suspicious of Constantinou's tale and pulled his money out just before. 'It was too much of a red flag generating that amount of money from the margins – if it was that good it would have been discovered by a hedge fund,' he recalls. Hundreds of others ended up losing their lifetime savings. A person close to some of the victims and their families says: 'There was a retired lorry driver who put all his money in and lost the lot, and a group of Gurkhas who put their retirement funds in and lost the whole shebang.' Constantinou first disappeared in June 2023 when he was found guilty of fraud by false representations, fraudulent trading and money laundering at Southwark Crown Court. He was convicted by a jury in his absence and sentenced to 14 years in jail. Prosecutors estimated that Constantinou made £97m from the scam and recovered a Range Rover, Porsche and CWM-branded motorcycle during their investigations. A confiscation order for £64m was handed down this month. Adrian Foster, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: 'This was a callous scam targeting members of the public. Many people lost their hard-earned money because of Constantinou's greed and false promises in this fake investment scheme.' The fraudster, who uses the aliases Antonis Hadjicostis and Georgios Arnaoutakis, was arrested in Bulgaria in 2023 while trying to enter Turkey with false documents, but was later released. Aside from the death certificate in Mexico, the trail has gone cold. As the hunt for Britain's 'Wolf of Wall Street' continues, those whose lives have been affected by Constantinou's tricks continue to feel haunted by the experience. 'I've been the target of another scam since,' admits Ben. 'So now I do all my own investments – I will not take the advice of anybody from anywhere. There are too many scams out there.'
Daily Mirror
21-06-2025
- Daily Mirror
'Real-life Wolf of Wall Street' ordered to pay back £64m in biggest ever order
On-the-run fraudster Anthony Constantinou, 42, who has been dubbed the 'real-life Wolf of Wall Street' has been ordered to pay back £64million or spend over 14 years behind bars An on-the-run fraudster known as the "real-life Wolf of Wall Street" has been slapped with what is believed to be the biggest proceeds of crime order ever made. Anthony Constantinou, 42, has been ordered to pay back £64 million or spend 14 more years in prison for a huge fraud. Constantinou fled Britain during his £70million investment scam trial at Southwark Crown Court in 2023. He was jailed in his absence for 14 years for fraud and money laundering, duping 312 investors from 2013 to 2015. It was reported last year that a death certificate has emerged appearing to show he died of a heart attack in Guadalajara, Mexico, and was cremated the next day. But David Marchant, of investigative bureau Offshore Alert, said: "It's possible he faked his own death. I think he's probably still alive." The confiscation order was made by a judge at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday. Constantinou was jailed for 12 months in 2016 for molesting two women in an atmosphere of "sexual bullying" likened at the Old Bailey to the Hollywood film The Wolf Of Wall Street. He was three years old when his father, the millionaire clothes designer Aristos Constantinou, was shot dead in his London mansion in 1985 as he returned from a New Year's Eve party with his wife. The unsolved case became known as the silver bullet murder because he had been killed with six bullets in polished nickel jackets. Adrian Foster of the Crown Prosecution Service said of the confiscation order: 'This was a callous scam targeting members of the public. Many people lost their hard-earned money because of Constantinou's greed and false promises in this fake investment scheme. 'We continue to pursue the proceeds of crime robustly with the City of London Police, where we identify available assets, to disrupt and deter large scale frauds like this case. 'In the last five years, over £478 million has been recovered from CPS obtained Confiscation Orders, ensuring that thousands of convicted criminals cannot profit from their offending. "£95 million of that amount has been returned to victims of crime, by way of compensation.'
Daily Mail
20-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Real life 'Wolf Of Wall Street' corrupt City boss who remains on the run is ordered to pay back £64million after Ponzi-style scam
A City boss compared to the Wolf Of Wall Street has been ordered to pay back £64million over his role in a gigantic Ponzi-style investment scam, prosecutors said. Anthony Constantinou remains on the run after he fled the UK during his trial at London 's Southwark Crown Court in June 2023. He was found guilty of seven counts of fraud by false representation, fraudulent training and money laundering and convicted in his absence to 14 years imprisonment. Constantinou enjoyed a playboy lifestyle, driving a fleet of flash motors and riding around on a superbike branded the logo of his company, Capital World Markets (CWM). The 41-year-old crook spent millions on sponsorship deals designed to make CWM appear successful and draw in potential clients. He duped hundreds of investors out of a total of £70million between 2013 and 2015 while he ran Capital World Markets (CWM). A spokesman for City of London Police said a confiscation order was made against him on Thursday for the sum of £64 million, which is payable within three months. Police released photographs of some of the luxury vehicles Constantinou spent his fraudulent money on, including a Porsche, Range Rover and luxury motorbike. They previously said he was thought to be in Turkey or Dubai after being stopped in Bulgaria with a fake Spanish passport. CWM had high-profile sponsorship deals with sports events or teams including the Honda Moto GP, Chelsea Football Club, Wigan Warriors rugby league club, Cyclone Boxing Promotions and the London Boat Show. The seven-week trial heard how Constantinou spent £2.5million of investors' money on his 'no expense spared' wedding on the Greek island of Santorini in September 2014, while his son's first birthday party a few days earlier cost more than £70,000. More than £470,000 was paid for private jet hire to fly him and his associates to Moto GP races across Europe as well as a return flight to Nice for a 150,000-euro five-day yacht cruise around the Mediterranean to Monaco. The firm paid £200,000 a quarter to rent 'plush' offices in the City's Heron Tower, while nearly £600,000 was spent on just six months' rent of his large home in Hampstead, north-west London, where his luxury cars were parked in the drive. Promised returns of 60 per cent each year on risk-free foreign exchange (FX) markets, a total of 312 investors trusted their money to CWM. Some were professionals but most were individuals who handed over their life savings or pension pots, with a large number of Gurkhas paying into the scheme, said prosecutor David Durose KC. Constantinou denied wrongdoing but was found guilty of one count of fraud, two counts of fraudulent trading and four counts of money laundering and sentenced to 14 years in prison in his absence. Adrian Foster, of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: 'This was a callous scam targeting members of the public. Many people lost their hard-earned money because of Constantinou's greed and false promises in this fake investment scheme. 'We continue to pursue the proceeds of crime robustly with the City of London Police, where we identify available assets to disrupt and deter large-scale frauds like this case. 'In the last five years, over £478million has been recovered from CPS obtained confiscation orders, ensuring that thousands of convicted criminals cannot profit from their offending. £95 million of that amount has been returned to victims of crime, by way of compensation.' Constantinou has been photographed socialising with Princess Beatrice and showing Princess Anne around his company premises after agreeing to sponsor the London Boat Show in 2015. Constantinou was previously jailed for a year at the Old Bailey in 2016 after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two women during after-work drinks. One of the victims described how the parties were just like the raucous scenes depicted in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as rogue New York trader Jordan Belfort. The court heard that in October 2014, Constantinou pushed a woman up against the frosted glass of the reception area and went on to grope and kissed her against her will. Then in February 2015, he assaulted another woman during drinks after a business meeting. During the meeting, Constantinou threw her mobile against a wall and told her: 'Don't answer phones in my meeting.' Constantinou was three years old when his fashion tycoon father Aristos was gunned down in his Bishop's Avenue mansion in 1985. The unsolved case was dubbed the 'Silver Bullet Murder' due to the six nickel-jacketed bullets that ended Aristos's rags-to-riches life. One of Constantinou's investors spoke to Mail Online in 2023 about his boss' appetite for bad behaviour. The man, who first met Constantinou in 2014, said: 'He put out this image of himself as being hyper successful and I think essentially that's what I fell for. 'Initially I had dismissed the whole thing as too good to be true but I saw so much evidence of it being genuine that I convinced myself that it was. I should have listened to my gut. 'I thought essentially if this is a scam he wouldn't have gone to this much effort. It was very elaborate and there were a lot of people involved. 'The clever thing he did was he did actually have a properly regulated FX business in London but he ran the Ponzi alongside it - that was quite clever. 'So seeing the office, his house, the chauffeur driven Rolls Royce he got around in and all these sponsorship deals - it did all look very genuine. 'If Chelsea are being sponsored by them and he's meeting showing Princess Anne and showing her round the office it feels legit.' After a few meetings with Constantinou and his CWM colleagues in 2014, it was agreed that the businessman would invest £140,000 and work with the company to set up a Dubai base. It was while working alongside Constantinou in his 'Wolf of Wall Street' style trading floor, that he saw how difficult, volatile and untrustworthy the fraudster could be. He continued: 'Every single business meeting - and I mean every single one - he would force everyone in the meeting to drink. 'It was always the same, Grey Goose vodka mixed with orange and cranberry juice and he'd force everyone to stay and get drunk. 'The drinking would start from 2pm in the afternoon and go on until 10 or 11 at night and it was every single meeting, every day. 'He was like a spoiled child king. Nobody could leave these sessions or he'd have a tantrum and lose his s***. 'A few hours in he'd be absolutely wasted, so he'd be doing stupid, weird stuff like throwing things across the office to annoy people or smashing doors. He was a pretty nasty piece of work.' According to the investor, opting out of Constantinou's demands wasn't a choice as his paranoid, controlling and spiteful nature leaked into the entourage of underlings he kept at his heels. He said: 'His entourage was Stalin-esque. He kept his circle close and everyone just did as he said for fear of reprisals. 'He was a moody child who would fly off the handle for basically any reason. You always had to tell him what he wanted to hear. 'He had a Telegram group where he sent good morning messages. He expected every single person to reply with either a thumbs up emoji or a muscle emoji - if you didn't, he would lose his s***. 'One of his assistants would then phone you up and say: 'Listen, you have to reply to him in the Telegram group, he's going mad and smashing stuff up in the office.'
