Cruise conman Richard Lester has today been jailed for five years after being found guilty of making £400,000 by selling fake cruises in a cruel Ponzi-style scheme on a global scale
A scammer who conned ‘cruise customers’ out of more than £400,000 has today been sentenced to five years.
Richard Lester, a shameless fraudster who referred to himself as a ‘lord’, managed to dupe more than 180 individuals from all over the world into believing they were purchasing cruise miles via his Cruisemiles website. Victims of the Ponzi-style scam were bought through agents and exchanged for discounted cruises through Lester’s fraudulent website. However, no cruises were ever booked for them.
When they turned up at the ports, no doubt excited about their adventures at sea, the would-be travellers were turned away by cruise operators before even getting a chance to board. On December 17, Lester was convicted unanimously of fraudulent trading and concealing criminal property.
On top of his prison sentence, gambling addict Lester, who “lived the high life” on his fraudulent earnings, has also been disqualified from acting as the director of any company for the next nine years. Passing sentence, Judge Mills told Lester: “You not only took from these individuals and caused them distress, frustration, uncertainty, disappointment and financial loss but you sought to gaslight them. Their upset was apparently their fault, leading at least some to question their own actions when all of the time this was down to you.”
Some of Lester’s victims had booked cruises for special birthday celebrations or as wedding gifts, the judge told the court. He continued: “You were a professional gambler, gambling in poker tournaments and major poker tournaments, winning significant amounts of money, living the high life in Las Vegas and elsewhere.”
Lester ran Cruise Direct UK Ltd from 2009 to 2014. This was a scheme whereby people would purchase cruise vouchers up to three years in advance, with the cash spent then used to pay for customers embarking on earlier cruises who had purchased vouchers in the same manner.
In a similar vein to air miles, customers could now purchase miles to be exchanged for cruise trips – or so they thought. Many customers found the number of miles needed to book these cruises would rapidly increase at regular intervals.
Through his business, Lester, who would “brag” about his “lavish lifestyle”, offered customers the opportunity to buy cruises at cut price rates. He would meet with future victims on cruises, and would even recruit some as agents for his business.
At first, some customers successfully booked and sailed on cruises and the company even received a “prestigious World Travel Award” in 2012. However, many later received false confirmations for cruises that had never actually been booked.
Money from new customers was used for earlier customers, and was also used to back Lester’s extravagent lifestyle, gambling habit and other business ventures. Although customers did receive refunds after cancellations, they had to buy more miles due to inflation in the number of miles needed to buy a cruise. Once the company eventually stopped trading, customers were left with worthless miles worth hundreds or even thousands of pounds.
Lester’s agents, who themselves had sunk thousands of pounds worth of miles, would earn commissions by selling more miles to unsuspecting customers, left trapped with no way of reclaiming their own lost cash. Eventually, aggrieved victims started to report the scam, and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau contacted Essex Police in July 2013.
Investigators discovered that Lester had stolen £406,856.39 over a three-year period, with the 184 victims coming from the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, Germany and Japan. In a bid to evade justice, Lester used various aliases, going by Henry Lester, Les Richards, Lord Lester, Richie Lescovitch and Barry Williams. Ultimately however, he was brought to justice.
At the time of Lester’s conviction, PC Leanne Smith said: “This has been a large and complex investigation, with officers gathering dozens of statements from victims. I’d like to thank our Detective Simon Gray, who has since joined City of London Police, and our barristers Andrew Evans and Sophia Kerridge, for their commitment to this case.
“Securing justice for these victims meant scouring several bank accounts to trace exactly where their money has gone. All their money leads back to Lester. His greed left hundreds of people thousands of pounds out of pocket. They were tricked into committing more and more money to his scheme, unaware that money was going directly into Lester’s pocket.
“Many of the cruise companies they were expecting to holiday with had no record they were ever due on board their ships. Lester poured funds into a lavish lifestyle he bragged about to the same victims’ he defrauded.
“Money was frittered on online poker websites and his other business interests. He’s now been found guilty thanks to the testimonies of those who wouldn’t believe his excuses, and we wait to hear the judges’ sentence in 2025.”
Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com
