Promoter of £21m pyramid scam ordered to pay back £1

Rita Lomas was ordered to pay back £1

A Bristol woman who promoted a £21m scam that fleeced some 10,000 victims has been ordered to pay back £1.

Rita Lomas, of Whitchurch, made £40,000 by encouraging people to join the Give and Take (G&T) pyramid scheme.

The scheme spread across the country between May 2008 and April 2009 and victims lost between £3,000 and £15,000 on the promise of getting £23,000 back.

Lomas previously received a four-and-a-half month suspended sentence after admitting her part in the scam.

'Beg, borrow, steal'

Judge Mark Horton at Bristol Crown Court said: "By agreement, I assess the benefit that you had from your criminal conduct at £40,455.93.

"It is agreed between the parties that your realisable assets amount for the purposes of this amount to £1.

"I therefore order confiscation in the order of £1 and £1 only."

He added that if her financial circumstances improved she would be called upon to pay the whole or any part of the money she made.

Victims were encouraged to "beg, borrow or steal" to invest in the scam, in which organisers promised they "could not lose".

Committee members behind the scheme pocketed up to £92,000 each, while as many as 88% of their victims lost between £3,000 and £15,000.

Eleven women, now aged between 35 and 70, became the first in the UK to be prosecuted for such a scheme, under legislation from the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Act 2008.

Six of the group were convicted of operating and promoting the scheme, while Lomas and two others were convicted of promoting it.