Radlett man charged over £40m fraud scheme (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Spencer Mitchell Steinberg from Radlett charged over £40m fraud scheme

4:40pm Tuesday 12th March 2013 in News By Court Reporter

A man from Radlett is among a group of three accused of a £40m "ponzi" style fraud, involving lucrative electrical contracts with prestigious hotels and the Olympic Park, who appeared for the first time at City of London Magistrates' Court yesterday.

Spencer Mitchell Steinberg, 43, of Lodge End, Radlett, appeared alongside Jolan Marc Saunders, 36, of Almonds, Avenue, Buckhurst Hill, and Michael Strubel, 51, of Royal Drive, New Southgate.

The defendants were charged at Hatfield Police Station on March 4 by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which investigated Saunders Electrical Wholesalers Limited.

It is alleged investors were falsely convinced the company had high-value electrical contracts with blue chip hotel chains and with the Olympic Park's Athletes Village.

Favourable interest rates were promised to investors who put money into the company.

All three have been charged with conspiring together between January 1, 2006, and May 31, 2010, to defraud various companies.

Saunders alone faces one charge of contravening a company director disqualification order made on January 1, 2001, by running Saunders Electrical Wholesalers Limited between December 19, 2008 and May 31, 2010.

All three defendants were bailed to Southwark Crown Court for a preliminary hearing on March 19 on condition that they reside at their recorded addresses, surrender their passports and do not communicate with each other.

They were all arrested in December 2010 when the SFO, assisted by officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Met, Essex and Hertfordshire, raided five residential addresses and one commercial premises during a police operation code named Operation Canon.