Attempting to bribe the Attorney-General of the United States to keep your pyramid scheme afloat must rank as one of the most optimistic business investments of all time.

That is what the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) believes two former accountants from the Midlands were doing when they transferred $250,000 (£127,057) to a US bank account in 2002.

Alan White, 49, and Shinder Gangar, 46, were found guilty yesterday of running a transatlantic pyramid scheme that defrauded investors of $200 million.

As the net closed in on the fraudsters, their US assets were frozen and the pair are thought to have transferred the money to facilitate a bribe.

The SFO, which brought the case against Mr White and Mr Gangar, said that the money was to “be paid to the US Attorney-General or another US government official”.

The Attorney-General at the time was John Ashcroft, a devout Pentecostal Christian.

The SFO told Birmingham High Court that Mr White and Mr Gangar lured new investors into their scheme by falsely claiming that they had famous clients including Sir David Frost, Lord Lloyd-Webber and Prince Michael of Kent.

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 SFO told the 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 existing investors, while the remainder was used buy luxury homes for White and Gangar and give 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 at least 300 investors of more than $200 million.

Dowdell is serving a 15-year sentence in the United States for financial crimes. When the US authorities began investigating Mr Dowdell they froze the Ponzi scheme’s funds, which prevented Mr White and Mr Gangar paying returns to investors.

The SFO said that the pair transferred $250,000 to an American bank account in the somewhat vain hope of getting the money released.

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.

Sir David and Lord Lloyd-Webber gave evidence during the trial, as did Nicholas Chance, principal private secretary to Prince Michael.

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