Developer who turned Caribbean dreams into nightmares in £226m fraud

theguardian.com:

The Essex businessman David Ames lured investors with the promise of a Caribbean dream, but the £226m fraud he perpetrated left thousands with the nightmare of losing life-savings and pensions.

Through glossy brochures, slick marketing events and the pulling power of celebrities, including former sports stars such as the tennis player Pat Cash, the golfer Gary Player and the footballer Andy Townsend and Liverpool football club, he persuaded people to invest in off-plan holiday cabanas and apartments across the Caribbean and in Brazil.

Ames, 70, who was twice bankrupted through companies selling garden furniture and windows, and had experience of timeshare, set up the Harlequin group, an international network of resort development companies, in 2005. By the time the company went into administration in 2013, he had sold 8,200 units in seven resorts.

The problem was, less than 200 units were ever built and they were all at the same resort, Buccament Bay in St Vincent and the Grenadines, which was the only one out of the seven that Ames managed to construct. When it collapsed, Harlequin faced a £1.2bn shortfall.

As the self-styled “highly charismatic” Harlequin chair, Ames believed he was a “visionary”, but has been described as a “Walter Mitty-type figure”. He was in charge of the day-to-day running of Harlequin, with his wife, Carole, and son Dan, as directors. Another son, Matthew, who in 2014 was imprisoned for three years for a fraudulent carbon credit investment scheme, managed marketing.

The family enriched themselves by £6.2m through the Harlequin business, enjoying a luxury lifestyle flying to and from the Caribbean, with Ames employing his own chauffeur. Some family members were paid £10,000 a month, the Series Fraud