Jailed: Pseudonym criminal who ran £2.7 million investment fraud scam with his wife sentenced to nine years imprisonment

A relentless fraudster who uses numerous pseudonyms and was previously banned from being a director of any company has been jailed for nine years for a £2.7 million investment fraud.

Clint Canning 45, of Barnston, Dunmow, CM6, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday 15^th December 2022. He was sentenced to nine years imprisonment and handed a 15 year director disqualification at the same court on Friday 3^rd February 2023.

Eleise Wallace, 37, of Barnston, Dunmow, CM6, was found guilty of money laundering at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday 15^th December 2022. She was sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended for two years, ordered to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work and handed a rehabilitation order of 15 days at the same court on Friday 3^rd February 2023. Wallace was also disqualified from being a company director for five years.

Detective Inspector Gareth Dothie, from the fraud operations team at the City of London Police, said:

“This has been a lengthy and complex investigation and we are glad that Canning has been brought to justice for his crimes.

“Canning, who uses a number of aliases including Christian Beauchamp and Clint Foster, was previously convicted for fraud and had a lifetime ban from being a director of a company. He has shown himself to be a career criminal and in this instance worked alongside his wife, Eleise Wallace, to defraud people and spend innocent victims’ money on their own lifestyle.  

“We hope that the sentence handed down by the court today goes some way to help the victims rebuild their lives.”

Canning, in the name Clint Foster, was part of the setting up of a company called Base2Trade, which claimed to invest in the binary options market between 2014 to 2015. The company was shut down in 2015.

Binary options are a form of fixed-odds betting. Typically a trade involves predicting whether an event will happen or not and the outcome is either yes or no. If the investor is correct, they ‘win’ and should see a return on their investment and if they’re wrong, they lose their full investment.

A total of 175 known victims invested in the company, to a total of £2,718,590. Around 60 per cent of the victims were aged 50 and above.

The victims of Canning’s scam were almost all cold-called to discuss the potential to make great sums of money by investing in Canning’s company. After the initial call, most investors received a follow up letter or email. The letter stated that investors would have a realistic earning potential of between £1,126 to £2,250 profit per week, with an 88.3 per cent success rate.

Once victims had made an initial investment payment, they were given a username and password for an online trading platform which was claimed to have showed trades being made. But in reality, the investments were faked, the platform displayed fictitious results and there was no evidence to suggest that the trades were ever placed.

Most investors saw what they thought were their investments performing well on the online platform. They were then called repeatedly by Base2Trade with requests for further investment, which many did not turn down due to what they believed from the online platform.

Many victims were told their investment had to be turned over a number of times before it could be returned. One victim invested more than £99,000 to increase their income post-retirement and received no return on their investment.

As part of the investigation, it was discovered that Canning was in control of the company and Wallace, Canning’s wife, received investors’ money directly into her personal bank accounts. It is believed Canning and Wallace then spent the money on funding their own lavish lifestyle.

Canning, who was wanted by police, was arrested at London City Airport in February 2016. He was interviewed and provided officers with a prepared statement. In all questions put to him, Canning stated that he wished to “refer to his statement”. In a second interview just four days later, Canning answered “no comment” to all further questions put to him.

Wallace was arrested while attempting to leave the country in November 2015. She was interviewed and answered no comment to all questions before she was subsequently bailed. She was later interviewed in April 2017 and she again answered no comment to all questions. She then attended Bishopsgate Police Station in March 2019. Wallace is believed to have known that the money entering her personal bank account was fraudulent and was involved in the laundering of the funds.