Glamorous party girl conned pensioners out of £2m to fund her luxury lifestyle of the best restaurants and trips to the races
Prya Boodhoo swindled around 150 people out of their savings
A PARTY girl conned more than £2million from vulnerable pensioners while working for a firm of barristers.
Prya Boodhoo masterminded a scam to swindle the pensioners out of their life savings - right under the noses of top lawyers.
The 31-year-old set up an “environmentally-friendly” firm and used boiler-room tactics to sell fraudulent carbon credit shares.
She then used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle - dining in the best restaurants and going to events such as Ladies Day at Chester Races.
Police believe victims paid her and others connected to her more than £2.2million in less than a year.
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They say around 147 victims bought the Certified Emission Reduction carbon credits from her company, Greentrade, as an investment hoping to turn a profit.
The majority of victims were pensioners who would send cheques and payments to a maildrop facility which were then banked by the firm.
A regular in nightclubs and top restaurants, Boodhoo, 31, who worked at the prestigious Kings Chambers in Manchester, was a regular on the Cheshire and Manchester social scene.
A source said: “It takes some cheek to work for a chamber of barristers while also swindling vulnerable pensioners out of their life savings.
“No-one could understand here she got the endless supply of cash to live her life of luxury, eating in the finest restaurants and dressing in flash clothes but now we know.”
She was arrested after police swooped on dozens of fraudsters operating boiler room businesses selling fake shares.
Along with her mother, brother and sister she was targeted by Operation Rico aimed at stamping out the scam.
The joint action by the City of London Police and the Insolvency Service led to the force’s biggest ever deployment overseas when around 110 British fraudsters were arrested, the majority of whom were located in Spain.
Among those under investigation were 10 "tier one criminals" with alleged links to organised crime and drugs.
Those who are targeted are usually vulnerable or have a history of share investment, particularly in privatised utilities in the 1980s and 90s.
Most of the victims are pensioners with police confirming that some killed themselves because of the financial problems they got into.
Fraudsters cold-call their victims, applying "high-pressure sales techniques" and "confidence tricks" to persuade them to part with their money.
They are offered returns of 10 to 20 per cent per year, directed to authentic-looking websites and glossy brochures and asked to invest in bonds in well-known firms or in other companies that are officially registered.
Initially, they may receive "dividends" to give them confidence their investment is paying off but never receive any more or get their money back.
The Financial Conduct Authority has estimated that as much as £200m is lost to boiler room frauds in Britain every year.
One of the victims, a woman in her late 70s, lost her life savings after she invested £23,000 in carbon credits.
Boodhoo opened a bank account in Greentrade’s name as its sole director, claiming to have immediately passed complete control of that bank account to a third party who was in control of the company.
Insolvency Service
She was then persuaded by another salesman to borrow money to buy £140,000 of shares in gold. She never recovered the money.
Many people have lost their life savings but the biggest individual loss recorded by police was £6 million.
But although Boodhoo was caught red-handed she may never face criminal charges because the trail of deception may involve several foreign countries and would be too costly to investigate.
Instead she has been banned from being a director of a firm for nine years after it was revealed her company had received almost £450,000 between June 2012 and January 2013.
During that time she paid out a total of £360,000 to firm employees thought to be family members.
The source said: “A lot of people wondered how she was funding this lavish lifestyle. I think it’s disappointing she will not face charges.”
A spokesman for the Insolvency Service said: “Greentrade used misleading sales techniques in order to induce members of the public to purchase Certified Emission Reduction carbon credits (“CERs”) as an investment product
“Boodhoo opened a bank account in Greentrade’s name as its sole director, claiming to have immediately passed complete control of that bank account to a third party who was in control of the company.”
He said: “Information obtained from the City of London Police suggests that 147 investors have paid a collective amount of £2.2m in relation to CERs, either directly to Greentrade, or to associated entities as instructed by Greentrade.”
A spokesman for the City of London Police confirmed Boodhoo had been arrested as part of Operation Rico.
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