A senior executive who’s accused of lying about the size and vintage of his firm’s fine wine collection and who duped investors out of at least $99 million is facing extradition to the US over the alleged Ponzi scheme.
The US wants the ex-chief financial officer of Bordeaux Cellars Ltd., Andrew Fuller, to face charges of fraud and money laundering. He allegedly flew, with firm founder Stephen Burton, to investor conferences in the US and other countries where they raised money making false claims about the wine, lawyers said in documents prepared for a London hearing.
Investors, half of whom are US-based, “were falsely assured that the lenders and their wine collections existed,” the US government said. “In reality, Bordeaux Cellars did not have custody over the secured wine,” and had thousands fewer bottles, the lawyers said.
The money they collected was used to continue the fraud or for their own personal gain, the lawyer for the US government said in court filings.
Fuller, the CFO between 2017 and 2019, denies all the allegations. His lawyers said that Fuller had no knowledge that Burton had devised the scheme. Fuller opposes his extradition citing risks of self harm and damage of mental health to him and his unwell wife.
Fuller trusted that the firm had the wine and investors continued getting returns until Burton was arrested in February 2019. “It was at this point that the house of cards collapsed,” Fuller’s lawyer said.
In 2019 Burton pleaded guilty to money laundering in a UK court and was sentenced to less than four years in prison. Burton is currently detained in Morocco, where US is seeking his extradition, according to the court filings.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.