Guernsey 'cancer cure' conman to see assets seized

David Noakes will lose his aircraft, boat, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce and UK and Guernsey bank accounts, the judge ruled

The founder of a company jailed for selling a so-called cancer cure faces the confiscation of £1.4m in assets.

David Noakes, of Waldershare near Dover, illegally made and distributed unlicensed substance, GcMAF globally.

His company Immuno Biotech, in Guernsey on the Channel Islands, made millions of pounds online, Southwark Crown Court heard.

He will lose his aircraft, boat, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce and UK and Guernsey bank accounts, the judge ruled.

Noakes advertised GcMAF as a "miracle cure" for a range of conditions including cancer, HIV and autism

Noakes, 67, was jailed for 15 months in November 2018 after admitting money laundering and manufacturing, supplying and selling an unlicensed medicine.

Noakes advertised GcMAF as a "miracle cure" for a range of conditions including cancer, HIV and autism, with no scientific basis to support these medicinal claims.

The court heard Noakes made more than £13m from the sale of GcMAF between 2011 and 2015.

Sentencing him two years ago, Judge Nicholas Lorraine-Smith said Noakes "firmly" believed GcMAF had helped and would help people but had showed a "reckless disregard for the regulatory regime".

He had sold it to "extremely vulnerable people" and the fact it was freely available for sale on the internet was "horrifying", the judge added.

'Public health risk'

A confiscation order of £1,349,400.48 was granted by Southwark Crown Court after a four-year investigation by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the London Regional Asset Recovery Team.

Andy Morling, the MHRA's head of enforcement, said after the case that he welcomed the order.

"Noakes put public health at risk through the unlicensed manufacturing and sale of GcMAF products, which were not fit for human consumption or for use as medicines," he said.

Noakes, who is wanted in France over nine alleged offences including marketing unauthorised medicines, was arrested in May in Truro, Cornwall, by police.

Officers had been searching for him since December when he failed to report to them while on bail.