Fine wine scam: Director of Capital Bordeaux Investments banned from running businesses for 11 years

A man who scammed £60,000 claiming he ran a fine wine investment firm has been banned from being a director for 11 years. 

 

Scott Andrews – the sole director of Capital Bordeaux Investments Limited – used false and misleading advertising material to “induce” customers into paying for wine, which never materialised. 

 

The company targeted victims of previous wine investment scams and misled them into believing they could recoup their losses.  At least 10 people invested a total of £59,750, believing they were buying wine that would be held in a government-regulated bonded warehouse. 

 

Bank statements suggest wine was never bought with the money. 

 

London-based Capital Bordeaux claimed to have been incorporated in 1995, when Andrews would have been six years old. In fact the firm was incorporated in 2012. 

 

Andrews also failed to maintain, preserve or deliver accounting records, preventing the official receiver from establishing whether the company had additional investors or hidden assets.

 

Paul Titherington, official receiver at the Public Interest Unit, said: “It was Mr Andrews and his salesmen who benefited from this company rather than its honest investors. He misled members of the public and took their money without providing them with the goods they’d been promised. Anyone showing such blatant disregard for commercial morality should expect to be banned from running any limited company for a lengthy period time.”