Two former accountants from the Midlands have been found guilty of running a transatlantic pyramid scheme that defrauded investors of $200 million.

Alan White, 49, and Shinder Gangar, 46, lured in new investors by falsely claiming that famous clients including Sir David Frost, Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber and HRH Prince Michael of Kent had put money into their scheme.

The pair, who ran a firm called Dobb White & Co from offices in Leicester and Nottingham, told investors that their funds could produce returns of more than 40 per cent a year.

The Serious Fraud Office, which brought the case against White and Gangar, proved in court that the money was really going into a “Ponzi” or pyramid scheme.

Some of the money from new investors was used to pay returns to older investors while the remainder was used to buy luxury homes for White and Gangar and make loans to their friends.

The Ponzi scheme was merged with the operations of an American fraudster Terry Dowdell in 2001, creating a transatlantic scam that the SFO believes defrauded investors of over $200 million.

Dowdell is serving a 15 year sentence in the United States for financial crimes. His arrest in 2002 caused the Ponzi scheme’s funds to be frozen by US authorities.

The SFO believes that White and Gangar transferred $250,000 to a US bank account that year in the hopes of bribing a government official, possible even the Attorney General, to release the money.

A date for sentencing has yet to be set and the SFO will seek a confiscation order to seize assets bought with the proceeds of the crime.

Times Recommends

• C&G axed - 1,660 jobs to be lost
• UK house prices rise 1.1% as buyers return
• Mixed reaction to US banks repaying bailouts