SHAH ALAM: Two United Kingdom citizens, who are the ringleaders of an international investment fraud syndicate, were today each sentenced to six months in jail for cheating an individual out of RM600,000.
Sessions Court judge Rozilah Salleh ordered that Andrew Mark Peters' and Darren Anthony McNicholas' sentences begin from the date of arrest on Feb 21 this year.
She also sentenced Peters, 55, to pay a RM180,000 fine and McNicholas, 51, to pay a RM140,000 fine.
Both are to serve 22 months and 16 months in jail, respectively, if they fail to pay their fine.
The sentences were meted out to the duo at the Sessions Court this morning after Peters and McNicholas pleaded guilty to two counts, respectively, of cheating Ian Stratchan, a Scottish national in 2019.
Peters, a persons with disability, was found guilty of two charges comprising abetment and commanding McNicholas to cheat Strachan by deceiving him through an agent under pseudonyms "David Henshaw" and "Henry Paxton".
McNicholas pleaded guilty to two counts of deceiving Strachan.
The duo deceived Stratchan into making him believe that he was guaranteed to make a significant profit from a purported investment by buying shares in two non-existent companies — Novocure Limited and Premier Transfers Ltd — which they have dishonestly induced Stratchan to deliver a sum of US$5,672.41 into Premier Transfers Ltd's OCBC bank account, and €121,200 into the same company's CIMB bank account.
Peters and McNicholas were accused of committing the offense at Menara Mitraland in Petaling Jaya near here on May 21 and June 27, 2019.
Peters' charges were framed under Section 109 of the Penal Code, which was read together with Section 417 of the same code that carries a jail term of between six months to five years, or a sum of fine, or both.
McNicholas' charges were framed under Section 417 of the Penal Code, which carries a jail term of up to five years, or a fine, or both, upon conviction.
Deputy public prosecutors Ahmad Akram Gharib and Mohamad Fadhly Mohd Zamry prosecuted, while Peters and McNicholas are represented by lawyers Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali and Fahmi Abd Moin.
Earlier, Fadhly suggested that the court ordered appropriate sentences that were equivalent to the crime as the syndicate, which was based in Malaysia, affected many victims internationally and locally.
Rafique pleaded for the court to consider a six-month jail term for both the accused and the lowest amount of fine because they have been cooperating well with the authorities and are first-time offenders.
He said Peters was detained by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) since Feb 21, when it busted their syndicate, while McNicholas was detained by the Immigration Department on the same day, and rearrested by MACC on March 6.
MACC, on Feb 21, busted an international investment scam syndicate that had raked in RM200 million from victims in Australia and the United Kingdom.
The graft-busters' covert operation, Op Tropicana, was held simultaneously at 24 premises in Klang Valley and Penang without the involvement of the police.