The ship tycoon, the con men and a €100m scam

The ship tycoon, the con men and a €100m scam
John Gapper June 28, 2018
When fraudsters embarked on an elaborate sting, they made one big miscalculation: their victim

Just after noon on a sunny day in June, a 51-year-old former car dealer called Paul Sultana stood in court number four at Southwark Crown Court in London to be sentenced for his part in one of the strangest crimes ever tried there. He was first arrested seven years ago for conspiring to defraud the owner of the world’s biggest ship of €100m, and the marathon proceedings had taken their toll.

Sultana’s trial was not only the largest private prosecution known in the UK, but his second: he was originally tried last year but that jury could not agree on a verdict. He gave evidence in the first trial, donning glasses to examine documents as he swept back his brown hair. This time, he did not enter the witness box and looked exhausted as he was jailed for eight years after a six-week hearing. His victim, Edward Heerema, a 71-year-old Dutch shipbuilding tycoon, had finally broken him.

Sultana might have escaped jail, despite being described by the judge in a civil trial in 2014 as “a patently dishonest individual”, who was a “willing participant” in a fraud that spanned three continents. Frauds are notoriously hard and expensive to prosecute and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) did not bring criminal charges against him. He was only tried because Heerema was wealthy and relentless enough to pursue the loose-knit ring of fraudsters himself.

more...https://www.ft.com/content/d4bc5a02-7995-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d