Fraudster in £32m scam told to pay £1

A bankrupt stockbroker who defrauded millions of pounds from some of Britain’s shrewdest business people was yesterday ordered to pay a nominal £1 fee.

Nicholas Levene, 48, was jailed for 13 years last November after he admitted orchestrating a lucrative scheme which raked £316m into his bank accounts between April 2005 and September 2009.

At Southwark Crown Court he was ordered to pay the nominal fee while an investigation into his assets continues after he filed for bankruptcy in October 2009.

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Levene was not in court. The amount attributed to his false accounting was £32,352,027.

But with his customers’ lost profits, the amount shot up to a total of £101,685,406.

He would take from Peter to pay Paul and move the funds between accounts in financial havens Jersey, Switzerland and Israel.

Judge Martin Beddoe said: “I certify the benefit to be £32,352,027 and given what I have been told about the issue of Mr Levene’s bankruptcy and that the trustee in bankruptcy is confident and has got hold of such assets as were in the possession of Mr Levene in consequence of this offending, it seems to me entirely pragmatic that his assets are seized by the trustee in bankruptcy.

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“As there is nothing available, I direct that he should pay the nominal sum of £1 within seven days.”

Levene admitted ripping off a series of high-fliers, including Sir Brian Souter and his sister Ann Gloag, the founders of the Stagecoach bus and rail group; Richard Caring, owner of The Ivy and Le Caprice restaurants in London’s West End; and Russell Bartlett, director of the R3 Investment Group and former owner of Hull City Football Club.

He was a successful City worker with an estimated wealth of £15m to £20m in 2005.

But he was addicted to gambling, spending fortunes on spread betting, and had an insatiable taste for luxury.

Levene, of Barnet, Hertfordshire, a former deputy chairman of Leyton Orient Football Club, admitted one count of false accounting, one of obtaining a money transfer by deception and 12 of fraud.