Convicted cash launderer and ex-solicitor Dale Robert Walker, 64, has glad a confiscation order after a member of his household paid £33,500 excellent from £716,719 he was ordered to repay because of his legal actions referring to an funding scheme.
Mr Walker was jailed in 2015 following one of many FCA’s greatest investigations, Operation Cotton, which led to eight convictions and confiscation orders totalling nearly £2.2m.
Mr Walker was sentenced to an additional 62 days in jail in February for failing to totally pay an order in connection along with his involvement in an Unauthorised Collective Funding Scheme (UCIS).
He was initially convicted of cash laundering in April 2015 and sentenced to 5 and a half years’ in jail. He was additionally convicted of aiding and abetting the carrying on of an unauthorised regulated exercise within the UK with out authorisation or exemption.
In an replace to the case, the FCA stated Mr Walker had now totally glad his confiscation order.
From 2008 to 2011, Mr Walker helped to supply land and undertook conveyancing, registration and consultancy providers for plots offered to traders as a part of an unauthorised collective funding scheme (UCIS).
This scheme defrauded traders out of greater than £4.25m and, on events, Mr Walker obtained cash from traders into his solicitor’s consumer account.
In February 2017, a confiscation order was made to power Mr Walker to refund greater than £887,000 of legal proceeds. It was later different to £716,719. The choose warned Mr Walker that he may serve as much as three and a half years extra in jail if he did not pay.
In Could 2023, Mr Walker unsuccessfully argued that he had no extra property or monies to pay the quantity excellent, which at the moment stood at £38,750.
Though Mr Walker did pay some additional cash by instalment, on 23 February he was sentenced to 62 days in jail by Metropolis of London Magistrates’ Court docket for wilful and neglectful failure to pay the remaining £33,500. On 29 February, the cash was lastly paid on behalf of Mr Walker by a member of the family.
Steve Good, FCA joint government director of enforcement and market oversight, stated: “Confiscation proceedings are a key device in our work to make sure those that use their skilled place to reap the benefits of others don’t succeed of their legal efforts at self-enrichment.
“We welcome the court docket’s choice to impose an additional custodial sentence on Mr Walker, sending a transparent message that non-payment is a severe matter and that the courts will use all applicable instruments to implement these orders. It’s clear that this did lastly persuade Mr Walker to seek out the means to pay.”
Mr Walker’s sentence of 62 days mirrored a discount from the unique three and a half years because of the amount of cash already paid.