A fraudster who conned people by claiming he was supplying electrical goods to the Olympic Village and large hotels has been given nearly nine more years in jail for failing to hand back more than £5 million of illicit profits.
Jolan Saunders was originally jailed for seven years for a scam in which he and accomplices Michael Strubel and Spencer Steinberg took almost £80 million from investors to splash out on yachts, luxury cars and property.
The fraud was carried out by exaggerating the scale of contracts to the Marriot, Hilton, Plaza and Holiday Inn chains and lying about a non-existent deal to supply the Olympic Village at the London 2012 Games.
Saunders, from Buckhurst Hill, was ordered to return more than £5.2 million to compensate victims but has since only paid small sums, despite prosecutors finding evidence that he still has £4.5 million in hidden assets alone.
His debt now stands at £5,756,311 because of interest charges, and his failure to hand back his criminal gains has now prompted enforcement action by the Serious Fraud Office and a decision by a judge at Westminster magistrates to activate a default sentence of 3,236 more days in prison for non-payment.
John Carroll, chief operating officer of the SFO, said: “With callous disdain for those he has harmed, Jolan Saunders has resorted to falsehoods and obfuscation to avoid paying compensation to the victims of his pernicious fraud.”
The SFO added that instead of repaying what he owes, Saunders had “stalled and asserted, without evidence, that he hopes to pay the confiscation order through ‘major project works at blue chip hotels’ — echoing the false claims he made to those whom he defrauded”.
His accomplices were convicted in 2015, with Strubel jailed for seven years and Steinberg six years, nine months.
