Mark Barry Starling has been sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to five years’ imprisonment for defrauding investors in relation to unauthorised investment schemes that he operated between 2008 and 2017.

Over a period of 9 years between 2008 and 2017, Starling, 57, of Farnham in Surrey, purported to run investment funds and obtained investment monies from his friends and acquaintances. They entrusted him with just under £3 million of their money.

In sentencing, HHJ Bartle QC said that Starling had defrauded investors in an 'appalling way,' adding that "not one word of what [Mr Starling told investors] was true" and explaining that he had consistently told his victims "a pack of lies."

Starling claimed to be running three funds: the 'Pilot Dax Fund,' the 'Shadow Dax Fund' and the 'Pilot Eurostoxx Fund,' and described himself as a proprietary futures trader. It seems that he did have an interest in these markets, but little more than that. He traded just £8,000 of the £3 million invested with him, on which he made a loss of £2,450, yet managed to spend more than £1 million maintaining his own lifestyle.

Starling sometimes paid money back to his investors on request to sustain the illusion that he was running a successful investment business. In truth, however, these payments were just funded from other victims’ investment monies.

In order to cover up his deception and prolong the fraud, Mr Starling resorted to forging bank statements and documents and correspondence purporting to be from brokerages. He also registered web domain names and created email addresses in names similar to a legitimate brokerage, and for an entirely fictitious brokerage. The judge said that the forgeries were 'sophisticated' and the whole scheme demonstrated the way that Mr Starling had abused a position of trust. Starling was never authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to carry out any regulated activity.