DHS announced that James Andrew Wellesley, a British national, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after orchestrating a wire fraud conspiracy that defrauded more than 140 investors of nearly $100 million through Bordeaux Cellars, a fictitious wine brokerage firm.
Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI jointly investigated the case. Wellesley posed as Chief Financial Officer and Operations Manager to solicit investments from high-net-worth individuals with promises of returns backed by fine wine collections that did not exist, according to DHS. He was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court to 10 years imprisonment and ordered to pay $1 million in forfeiture.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the scheme solicited over $97 million from more than 140 victims worldwide, including 71 individuals in the United States. Investors were told their funds would finance loans to wine collectors secured by rare vintages held by Bordeaux Cellars. Instead, payments to early investors came from new victims’ funds in what prosecutors described as a ‘classic Ponzi scheme’. The fraud ran from June 2017 through February 2019 before collapsing.
Wellesley had prior criminal convictions in the United Kingdom for false accounting and mortgage fraud. He was extradited from the UK to face charges in the Eastern District of New York, according to DHS.
