The Pop Singer, the Come Dancing Star, the Vibrating Mystics ... Why Did so Many Fall for an Pounds 85m 'Scam' That Was Always Too Good to Be True? ; Special Report by Steve Boggan and Stephen Wright Into Britain's Ponzi Scheme Scandal

Daily Mail › July 25, 2009

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Summary

WHEN Mary Britten got the invitation to join one of the country's most lucrative investment clubs, she could hardly believe her luck. It was a financial scheme with incredible returns of up to 13 per cent a month and it all seemed above board -- after all, celebrities like England cricketer and Strictly Come Dancing star Darren Gough and singer Jerome Flynn were already signed up. And if it was good enough for them ...

Fast forward a couple of years and Mary's life is in tatters. She and her husband have lost Pounds 100,000, their home is mortgaged to the hilt and they are scraping a living from day to day. She is one of 600 people who have lost small fortunes because of an alleged Pounds 84 million investment scam that is rumoured to have cost Gough and Flynn as much as Pounds 1 million each.

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The Pop Singer, the Come Dancing Star, the Vibrating Mystics ... Why Did so Many Fall for an Pounds 85m 'Scam' That Was Always Too Good to Be True? ; Special Report by Steve Boggan and Stephen Wright Into Britain's Ponzi Scheme Scandal

'These victims have been totally hoodwinked,' says Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart, of City of London Police's fraud squad. 'They have been befriended and groomed by the bad guys.'

Mother-of-three Mary Britten says: 'This was not greed on our part. We wanted to make our children's lives better. Now we may lose everything we have worked for.

'We could lose our house. I don't know where to turn. My health suffers, the children have had no Christmas or birthday presents in the last year -- they had to be bought on our behalf by members of the family. If...

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