Bath man who made £4.5m on spread bets from stolen cash jailed

Police are now trying to recover the money Jeff Arundell gained from his criminality

A man who portrayed himself as an experienced trader and made £4.5m using stolen cash has been jailed.

Jeff Arundell, 75, of Sion Hill, Bath, was convicted of fraud and money laundering, following financial trading he carried out in 2016 and 2017.

He also used his power of attorney to take £260,000 from his now-late mother, with which he bought a Bentley car.

His actions were described as "deplorable" by police after he was sentenced to six and a half years.

A friend of Arundell who lost money in the fraud said he had "got what he deserved".

They added: "He caused myself and my family a lot of grief and heartache."

Arundell was sentenced at Bristol Crown Court to a total of six and a half years in prison for five offences

In November 2016, Arundell told a friend he had information that shares in a pharmaceutical company were due to significantly increase over the coming weeks and asked him to invest, Avon and Somerset Police said.

Members of his friend's family also invested with Arundell promising he would personally guarantee their stake money of around £100,000 in total.

After using the money for trades and spread betting in early December 2016, Arundell told the victims he had lost their money and did not have the funds to repay them.

They reported the fraud to police in January 2017 and an investigation was opened.

It was later discovered by the police Arundell had profited on some of the trades he had placed at the time using their money, but lied about it to them.

From the winnings, he continued to trade and place further bets, which in turn attributed to the £4.6m windfall he had accumulated by August 2017.

Arundell claimed to police that when he placed the trades in December 2016, he could indeed have repaid the guarantee, as he had received approximately £100,000 in inheritance from his late-mother's estate earlier that year.

'Deplorable'

However, this was investigated as a separate fraud, as it was discovered he had taken his mother's money, while holding a power of attorney for her some years before, police said.

By taking the money while she was alive, he had deprived other family members from inheriting from her estate.

Manager of the serious and organised crime investigation team, Dr Kirstie Cogram, said: "Arundell portrayed himself as an experienced trader in the financial markets [and] seemingly thought little of defrauding his own family by taking cash from his elderly mother, nor using money from a friend and their family to bankroll his spread betting efforts."

Ms Cogram said his actions were "deplorable", made worse by his lies meaning that two trials were required.

"While these verdicts and prison sentence will no doubt be welcomed by his victims, they do not take away from what they have been through," she added.

Arundell was convicted of three counts of fraud by false representation and one of money laundering at Bristol Crown Court on 30 October, in relation to £86,000 he received from his friend and their family.

He was found not guilty of a fourth count of fraud by false representation relating to the rest of the money he received.

He was also separately charged with fraud by abuse of position in respect of the handling of his late-mother's finances in early-2020. He was convicted of this offence in April 2021.

Arundell was sentenced for all five offences at Bristol Crown Court on Tuesday. An application has been made under the Proceeds of Crime Act to recoup money he gained from his criminality.