Lorry driver from Goole tried to sell the Ritz Hotel for £250m

The conman and two accomplices chose victims who were interested in the high-stakes world of "trophy" properties and sucking them in with false promises until they handed over a 1 million deposit, Southwark Crown Court in central London heard.

Unemployed lorry driver Anthony Lee, 49, pulled off the con which involved "one great big lie", convincing potential buyers that he was a "close friend and associate" of the reclusive billionaire Barclay brothers, owners of the prestigious hotel in Piccadilly.

Anuja Dhir QC, for the prosecution, said: "The deal that sounded too good to be true was a complete fantasy."

Lee and his business partner, retired construction company contracts manager Patrick Dolan, 68, pretended they had the ability to arrange the sale while solicitor Conn Farrell, 57, added "a veneer of legitimacy" to their scam.

"The prosecution case is that these three defendants were each involved in a simple but well-targeted and ambitious scam," Ms Dhir said.

"They promised their targets something that seemed to be too good to be true.

"As the negotiations progressed, they sucked their victims in with more false promises and frustrated them with unnecessary requests until they managed to extract from them a payment of 1 million."

She told the jury of nine women and three men: "What sets this transaction apart from most is that it was all based on one great big lie."

The defendants were never in a position to be able to sell The Ritz and it is those "direct lies" that make the trio guilty of conspiracy to defraud, Ms Dhir said.

The trio found their mark Terence Collins and his firm London Allied through so-called "middle man" Karen Maguire, a director of Property-Source.com which specialises in finding properties for private clients.

Lee told Ms Maguire he had access to a contract to buy The Ritz for 200 million and would sell it on to a third party for 250 million, offering to split the 50 million difference with her if she could find a buyer, the court heard.

Ms Dhir said this grossly undervalued The Ritz, which would have been worth between 450 million and 600 million at the time.

In December 2006, after telling Mr Collins that other parties were making higher bids for The Ritz, Lee demanded a 1 million non-refundable deposit in exchange for 27 boxes of documents related to the sale.

Ms Dhir said Mr Collins, who referred to the sale as "Project Notting Hill", had to take a "commercial gamble" by trusting Lee, whom he did not know particularly well, to deliver on his word.

"In fact, Mr Lee and Mr Farrell appear to have held no paperwork whatsoever in relation to this proposed deal, the sale of the Ritz," Ms Dhir said.

"The reason why this case has been brought before the criminal courts is that the commercial decision - or gamble, if you like - that Mr Collins took was based on a false promise."

As Mr Collins tried to get the funds for the 1 million payment from Dutch financier Marcus Boerkhoorn, he referred to the reclusive nature of the Barclay brothers, whom he said had their "secretive reasons" for selling The Ritz through a third party.

But the sale never happened and the money was never returned, the jury heard.

Ms Dhir went on: "The payment of the 1 million was made as a result of lies told by Lee with the specific intention of separating Mr Collins from his money.

"This was not, we say, an ordinary commercial decision, but a transaction induced by fraud.

"We say he could not have done it without the assistance of Mr Dolan and he could not have done it without the assistance of Mr Farrell."

Earlier, the court was told Lee and Dolan will say that the 1 million payment related to a separate property deal they had with Mr Collins, while Farrell will say he was acting on the instructions of his clients, Lee and Dolan.

Dolan, of Philip Lane, Tottenham, north London, Farrell, of Cambridge Road, Aldershot, Hampshire, and Lee, of Broad Lane, Beal, Goole, are on bail and all deny conspiracy to defraud between January 1 2006 and March 30 2007.

The trial, which is expected to last four weeks, was adjourned to tomorrow.