Sentences Dished Out to Fathers Peter and Andrew Currie for Fraud and Money Laundering

On 14 July 2023, Peter Currie and Andrew Currie were sentenced to 5.5 years and 2.5 years in prison respectively for fraud and money laundering. It follows the Fraud and Markets Oversight (FCA) prosecution of Collateral, a peer-to-peer investment company that was falsely claiming to be authorised and regulated by the FCA on its website. In December 2015, Peter Currie, a Collateral director, swapped the details of another company that he had agreed to sell - Regal Pawnbrokers Ltd - for the details of Collateral on the FCA’s public Register. This misinformation was used to encourage people to invest in loans on the Collateral platform, making false claims that it was authorised and regulated for 18 months until the FCA notified them of their discovery. Not only did Collateral continued receiving investments after being exposed, but Peter and Andrew Currie, who are brothers, also removed approximately £750,000 from Collateral customer accounts. They then appointed an administrator without informing the FCA as required, transferring £88,000 from Collateral funds in the process. The FCA successfully challenged the appointment of this administrator in court and a new one was appointed. It is estimated by the new administer of the £17.9m of customer loans outstanding at the time of Collateral’s collapse, approximately £11m will not be recovered due to significant shortfalls between the valuations applied to the property used as securities for the loans and the amounts the administrators have been able to realise on the market.At the sentencing hearing, both defendants were also disqualified from being company directors and Judge Griffith commented on the defendants actions, referring to the fraudulent register change of Peter Currie: 'Collateral was built on foundations of sand and dishonesty', and in respect of Andrew Currie noted ‘the clearest impression of your actions …. was to get more money out to the detriment of investors.' The FCA has begun confiscation proceedings to recover the financial benefit obtained by the defendants, as well as compensation proceedings to recover investor funds. The sentences serve as a warning that the FCA will take every enforcement action at its disposal to pursue criminals and protect consumers.