This week Michael Stanley went down for six years. The 68 year-old convicted fraudster will actually spend at least half this time behind bars. Whilst the specifics of his crime might have been relatively novel, there was nothing new or unusual about the basics, or indeed the victims.

Stanley’s Layezy Racing Syndicate operated between 2013 and 2019, and at the time of its collapse had 6,000 members and a waiting list of 3,000. It is estimated that the scheme received payments of around £44 million and paid out around £34 million, leaving a £10 million blackhole.

The business purportedly capitalised on a sophisticated formula for ‘lay’ betting, hence the name which is a play on “lay” and “easy”, but also carries a deceptive veneer of comfort and simplicity.

As Rachel Barber of the Crown Prosecution Service said, “Michael Stanley operated a massive fraud which he marketed to unsuspecting members as ‘virtually risk-free’, whilst boasting of the huge profits”.

The BBC cites retired hairdresser, Terry Wildey, who said he and his family had put £200,000 into the scheme. Mr Wildey said, “I watched my money grow, and I thought ‘my money’s not growing fast enough because it’s not big enough’, so I put more money in”.

Lawyer Monthly gives the example of a member who joined the syndicate, “desperate for money after the death of her husband to support her three young children and lost all £115,000 she invested”.

Meanwhile Stanley, perhaps predictably, bought properties in Spain, Land Rovers, expensive jewellery and no fewer than 23 racehorses of his own, according to Court reporting.

At the same time he was paying out to members using funds received from new subscribers, often tempted by the allure of exclusivity and success implied by the lengthy waiting list.

Will people ever learn?

On the 1st November 1920, Carlo Pietro Giovanni Tebaldo Ponzi pleaded guilty to a single charge of mail fraud after the international reply coupon scam he had run through his Securities Exchange Company was exposed and collapsed.

It was Ponzi who subsequently gave his name to any fraud where new ‘investors’ have their money directed towards paying out returns to previous investors.

His scheme claimed to arbitrage the value of IRCs in different countries to turn a profit. Just like Layezy it was an idea that seemed simultaneously both simple and complex. And both claimed to offer limited risk with outsized returns.

There were also the trappings of success to give prospective clients a sense confidence, along with a certain charm. As Stanley’s victim, Angela Elven is quoted as saying by the BBC, “he seemed like a very genuine person”… Show me the successful crook whose victims say, “he seemed like a total con artist”!

I feel for the victims of Stanley’s fraud and all such criminal activity. It is often those that can least afford to lose money that fall foul of such scams.

But as the old saying goes, if it looks too good to be true…it probably is.