Crooked estate agent is sent to jail

A crooked former estate agent who spearheaded a £1m property fraud has been sent to prison for three years. A mortgage adviser has also been jailed.

Former agent Raymond Abramson was an undischarged bankrupt andshould not have been in business, but used the name Trevor Smith in order to mastermind the scam.

He was one of three East Lancashire property swindlers who conned Irish investors between January 2005 and September 2008 into parting with money.

The investors were lured by false promises about the extent to which properties had been refurbished, tenant availability and mortgage funding.

They paid inflated prices for the 21 properties in the belief that they qualified for regeneration grants and had guaranteed tenants.

Abramson’s co-conspirator, financial adviser Mark Jopson, 51, who was recruited to arrange mortgages, was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison after police found he had deposited £1,068,000 into various bank accounts.

The third accomplice, John Edwards, 43, was ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service and given a ten-month suspended sentence.
 
Detective Constable John Lonsdale, of Greater Manchester Police’s Fraud Investigation Unit, said: “Abramson, Jopson and Edwards worked together on this meticulous scam, which they delivered over a prolonged period of time, to deliberately defraud their victims.

“All the victims have lost something as a result of the defendants’ greed and many will not recoup their initial outlay as the houses are in poor areas and in varying states of disrepair.”