The High Court of England and Wales has consented to an order by which Samuel Golding, his wife Shantelle, Digital Wealth Ltd and Outsourcing Express Ltd will pay funds that they hold to the Financial Conduct Authority for distribution to investors. These people and their firms raised those funds in unauthorised investment schemes that they ran.

The schemes purported to involve the online purchase of wholesale goods from China for onward sale and promised unrealistically high returns, in some cases up to 100% of the investment. In fact, the schemes were operating an unauthorised collective investment scheme and taking deposits illegally in contravention of the Financial Services & Markets Act 2000. No significant trading was conducted and the schemes relied on a continuous flow of new investors to fund existing investors’ returns. Samuel and Shantelle Golding admitted in court that they were personally involved in these contraventions.

The schemes raised more than £15 million from more than a thousand individual accounts. They paid out £9.25 million out of that sum to investors as returns and the defendants spent about £2.7 million, especially on travel, hotels and retail goods.

The Goldings will pay all the funds they hold to the FCA for distribution to investors. As a result of this action, the FCA will take control of approximately £3.4 million and distribute it affected consumers, leaving them with a collective loss of at least £2.7 million.   

Mark Steward, the head of enforcement at the FCA, praised his own organisation for nipping the fraud in the bud and rescuing most of the monies before the Goldings managed to fritter them away. He added: "In this case, we managed to save some money for investors: too often it is too late." The FCA investigated the companies in September 2017 and took immediate action to freeze the funds.