British Fraud Suspect Extradited from Morocco to US in $99 Million Ponzi Scheme Case

On Friday, Morocco extradited Stephen Burton, 58, a British national, to New York. According to the office of U.S. Attorney Breon Peace, he had been arrested in the kingdom in 2022 after entering it using a fake Zimbabwean passport, reports AP. The fifty-year-old was brought before the federal court in Brooklyn on Saturday for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money. He and his accomplice James Wellesley allegedly used a Ponzi scheme to swindle $99 million from investors. In court, the Briton pleaded not guilty. Pending his next court hearing on January 22, he has been detained.

According to the indictment, from June 2017 to February 2019, the two men posed as executives of Bordeaux Cellars and solicited New York investors, including at business conferences held in the United States and abroad. Their modus operandi was to negotiate loans between investors and wealthy wine collectors through their company. These loans would be fully guaranteed by valuable wine collections. They promised investors that they would receive regular interest payments from the borrowers. Bordeaux Cellars would hold the wine guaranteeing the loans in reserve. A real scam, as it was discovered that the wine collectors did not actually exist. Moreover, Bordeaux Cellars did not own any wine cellar supposed to guarantee the loans.