Ritz fraudster ordered to sell £1,000 car after cash runs out

Penniless lorry driver Anthony Lee duped one of the world's richest men in the scam in which he tricked buyers into handing over a 1m deposit on the London landmark after he claimed it was available in a cut-price deal.

Lee, 49, who was originally living in Whixley, near Harrogate, before moving to Broad Lane, Beal, Goole, was jailed in July for five years after he was found guilty following a four-week trial of obtaining a money transfer by deception.

A confiscation hearing at Southwark Crown Court was told Lee is "no longer a man of circumstance", with assets amounting to a Renault Laguna worth just 1,000.

Dominic Lewis, prosecuting, said a significant dent had been put in Lee's profits following civil proceedings and he has spent the remainder of the cash.

Judge Stephen Robbins made a confiscation order of 1,000, and Lee faces another 28 days in jail if he fails to pay.

Lee was found guilty of the fraud in which 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, who also own the Daily Telegraph and the Channel Island of Sark.

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 and one of his friends, Patrick Dolan, 68, of Tottenham, north London, were both cleared of conspiracy to defraud.

The pair's solicitor Conn Farrell, 57, of Aldershot, Hampshire, was also cleared of the conspiracy charge.