Truffle hustle: Courts shut down scammers in £9m high-value truffle farm investment racket

Courts have shut down five companies behind a £9m scam which promised unwitting investors a share of the proceeds from fictional high-value truffle farms all over the globe.

The companies told investors their savings were funding oak and hazel tree saplings inoculated with truffle spores. The truffles would then be cultivated and sold, with investors and plantation companies benefiting from the sales, they said.

But investigators from the Insolvency Service found no truffle harvesting or cultivation has ever happened at the plantations, including some in Spain and South Africa, despite the scheme first being sold to the public in 2012.

The advisors, Viceroy Jones New Tech, Viceroy Jones Overseas, Westcountrytruffles, Truffle Sales and Credit Free, were found to have tricked investors into paying £750 to £995 per sapling with the promise of significant returns within five years.

They also received “significant commissions”, the insolvency service said, with the scam involving more than 100 unwitting investors.

Cheryl Lambert, chief investigator for the Insolvency Service, said: “The companies and those behind them have showed no remorse in their calculated plan to scam investors of their pension pots.

“Although the Insolvency Service investigation was hampered by a lack of cooperation, the investigation pieced together the numerous layers in which the scam was wrapped.

“We take the matter of unregulated pension liberation investment schemes very seriously and will take action to stop any such schemes who have acted unscrupulously.”