Written 21st April 2015 by Olliers Solicitors
A gang of con artists who used a flat-pack wooden desk cabinet as a ‘Trojan Horse’ in a bid to pull off a £1.5million gold bullion sting have been sentenced for conspiracy to defraud.
The gang posing as rich Italian businessmen built the cabinet so one of them could hide inside it in the middle at a hotel and secretly switch a haul of Euros for fake currency during a deal. They planned to put one of the men inside the desk, show the jeweller genuine cash in a briefcase and then switch this with an identical case containing counterfeit notes – which he would then take away. However the group were caught when police swooped on a conference room at the hotel near the Trafford Centre in Manchester and found them putting together the wooden furniture ahead of their con.
Olliers represented one of the Defendants who was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court to a custodial sentence of 2 years and 8 months for offences of conspiracy to defraud and possession of counterfeit currency.
Matt Corn of Olliers Solicitors was instructed and Richard Simons of Lincoln House represented the Defendant