Five years for fraudster in 'outrageous' scam scheme to sell Ritz for £250m

Jobless lorry driver Anthony Lee, 49, from Yorkshire, tricked buyers into handing over a 1m deposit on the London landmark as he duped them into thinking that it was available in a cut-price deal.

He claimed he had a contract to sell the Ritz for a "bargain" 250m, and maintained he was close to its reclusive billionaire owners and brothers, Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay.

The charade was so successful that victims including Marcel Boekhoorn – a super rich investor known as "the Dutch Richard Branson" – were persuaded to pay a 1m advance on the fake deal.

Lee was found guilty earlier this month of obtaining a money transfer by deception following a four-week trial.

Sentencing Lee, Judge Stephen Robbins told him: "You were found guilty by a jury of this elaborate and outrageous scam purporting to sell the Ritz hotel.

"This offence has been compared to other fraudsters from the past, who tried to sell the Eiffel Tower, Brooklyn Bridge and Buckingham Palace."

Lee posed as a high-flying speculator to infiltrate the secretive world of trophy property sales, and succeeded in striking a deal in 2006 with developer Terence Collins.

The conman claimed he would buy the hotel for 200m before selling it on for 250m to Mr Collins, who would in turn sell it on once more.

Mr Collins instructed a solicitor to act for him in the deal and secured financial backing from the Bank of Scotland.

He then set about finding a buyer for the next stage of the deal, identifying Dutch tycoon Mr Boekhoorn, who owns 40 companies and employs 10,000 people worldwide.

Lee offered to sell the hotel for 258.5m and Mr Boekhoorn provided the 1m which the fraudster claimed was the deposit needed to hand over the contracts for the Ritz.

But the sale never happened, and Lee used the cash to splash out on a new Range Rover Vogue and a cruise around the Mediterranean.

Lee, who was originally living in Whixley, near Harrogate, before moving to Broad Lane, Beal, Goole, was cleared of conspiracy to defraud.

One of Lee's friends, Patrick Dolan, 68, of Philip Lane, Tottenham, north London, was also cleared of the conspiracy charge.

The pair's solicitor Conn Farrell, 57, of Cambridge Road, Aldershot, Hampshire was cleared of the conspiracy charge after he told the jury he was simply acting on his clients' instructions.