The Financial Conduct Authority has charged three individuals with fraud for their alleged involvement in a high-risk trading scheme which targeted people’s pension savings.
Kristofer McGuire, Keither Williamson and Karla Walker were charged with multiple offences including fraud by false representation and fraudulent trading.
Many victims were allegedly encouraged to use their pensions to invest in contracts of difference which were then traded to generate large commissions for those running the scheme.
CFDs are a high-risk investment product used to bet on the price of an asset.
The total known loss is more than £8mn with victims’ pension funds almost entirely being lost, according to the FCA.
The FCA alleges that between January 2015 and June 2017, McGuire, Williamson and Walker made untrue and misleading representations to a CFD trading platform that clients met the qualifying criteria for professional investors when in reality, they did not.
It also alleged that between January 2015 and June 2016, Williamson and McGuire engaged in fraudulent trading using detrimental trading strategies when trading CFDs to generate excessive commissions at the expense of investors.
Between April 2016 and February 2023 McGuire allegedly made further untrue and misleading representations to five individual investors to persuade them to invest their money through him and/or his firm K&K Consult LTD.
Williamson and McGuire are being accused of fraudulent trading while McGuire faces five further counts of fraud by false representation.
The defendants will appear at Magistrates Crown Court on June 7 2024.
alina.khan@ft.com
