City conman called Beano who duped his clients out of £316m to fund lavish lifestyle jailed for 13 years

A city trader who conned more than £316million from wealthy investors to fund a luxurious lifestyle has been jailed for 13 years.
Nicholas Levene, 48, ran a 'Ponzi' fraud scheme which he spent on private jets, super yachts, a £150,000-a-year box at Ascot and on hosting £10,000-a-day pheasant shoots.
The smooth-talking son of an electrician, nicknamed Beano because of his love of the comic, tricked some of Britain's most successful businessmen into parting with cash.
But in the end it all came crashing down, costing his victims as much as £100million.
In a letter to the court, Levene's own father described his son's lifestyle as 'beyond comprehension and understanding explained only by that monster, greed'.

Former Stockbroker Nicholas Levene arrives for sentencing at Southwark Crown Court

The city-boy's fraud was brought to and end when investors started legal proceedings resulting in his bankruptcy and arrest

Among his victims were Stagecoach Group's co-founders, brother and sister Sir Brian Souter and Ann Gloag, who lost £10million.
Richard Caring, owner of the Ivy and Le Caprice restaurants in London, was also tricked into handing over the same sum, although it is unclear how much, if any, he recouped.

 

Levene told clients he would make them huge profits, claiming he had access to shares which were unavailable to ordinary investors.
He would from time to time give them smaller sums of cash to maintain the illusion that he was delivering them profits. In total, he took £316million.

Con artist: Levene, who was nicknamed Beano because of his love of the comic, pictured with his wife Tracy (left) and on the trading floor in 1990

The Serious Fraud Office discovered he lost £32million of that between April 2005 and September 2009. 
With interest and potential profits taken into consideration, the clients are believed to have lost out by £101.6million. 
Levene, a former deputy chairman of Leyton Orient Football Club, spent more than £18million on his playboy lifestyle, habitually chartering private jets and yachts, staying in the penthouse suites of five-star hotels and buying properties for family members.
The fraudster spent £588,000 on his second son's Bar Mitzvah celebration, which featured a performance by girl band The Saturdays.

Lavish: Levene's main house was this £2million eight-bedroom property in Barnet, North London, where he lived with his wife Tracy and their three children

Levene used his fraud schemes to fund luxury tastes such as private jets and super-yachts (file picture)

Splashing the cash: Levene, a former deputy chairman of Leyton Orient Football Club, spent more than £18million on his playboy lifestyle, habitually chartering private jets and yachts (file picture)

His main house was a £2million eight-bedroom property in Barnet, North London, where he lived with his wife Tracy and their three children.
He also owned a £5million villa in Israel which he decorated with fine art, including at least one work by modernist painter Chagall.
He used £58.5million of his clients' money to place huge bets on the stock market.

Seeing stars: The fraudster spent £588,000 on his second son's Bar Mitzvah celebration, which featured a performance by girl band The Saturdays (above, file picture)

Frivolous: Levene also bought a £150,000-a-year box at Ascot (pictured) and gambled large amounts on sport

Stagecoach co-founder Ann Gloag was one of the high profile victims of Levene's fraud

He also gambled large amounts on sport, once losing £720,000 on a single Twenty20 cricket match in 2008.
During the economic boom years he was able to pay clients, but when the stock market crashed he resorted to duping new investors.
Commonly known as a 'Ponzi' scheme, his type of scam repays investors out of their own money or that of subsequent investors.
The fraud was brought to an end when investors started legal proceedings which resulted in his arrest and bankruptcy.
Levene had already pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to 12 counts of fraud, one count of obtaining a money transfer by deception, and one count of false accounting.
Jailing him at Southwark Crown Court yesterday, Judge Martin Beddoe told Levene he had carried out a 'determined and utterly dishonest course of offending for your own aggrandisement'.
'You were truly addicted to greed and a lifestyle that you did not really have the skills or imagination to achieve,' he said.
'The sums are staggering...it has involved so many acts and moments of betrayal of people who... clearly believed they were your friends.'