All language subtitles for Lies.Deceit.and.Betrayal.S01E05.Arafiena.1080p.ALL4.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-HiNGS_track3_[eng]

He was charming,
he was well-spoken.

He became a person you would
consider to be a supportive friend.

No red flags,
nothing to worry about.

I trusted him.

When I saw the FCA warning,
I felt sick.

I was frightened.

It was a terrible feeling.

I've suddenly realised I've lost
a lot of money.

It makes me hugely angry.

They have no idea about my parents.

They have no idea about
what they've sacrificed.

This was not their money,
whoever these people are.

I've lost everything.
I've lost everything.

Gareth Hamblin has worked at sea
as a ship's engineer

in the Merchant Navy and on
cruise liners for over 50 years.

I've always enjoyed what I do.

I spend my time away to be able
to provide for my family

to give them a good life.

And that's the driver.

That's the driver for going away.

We have a really happy family life.

Got a younger sister,
four years younger than me.

Dad has always worked really hard.

And when we were kids,
Dad was away a lot -

like, between six and nine months.

Me, Mum and Lizzy
spent a lot of time on our own.

Dad misses loads of family events

and, you know, Christmases
and all things like that.

I wasn't cross that Gareth
wasn't there for Kate's birth.

I was too busy, to be fair!

But, yes, it's a sacrifice,

but whatever profession that
you marry into, you have to adapt.

It seems like an odd lifestyle
to other people,

but you just learn to accept it.

And we've spent long periods at sea
with Dad

and, you know,
we're really proud of him.

In 2017, Gareth decides he wants
to retire in the next two years.

In terms of Dad retiring,

I think he spent a long time away,
especially from Mum.

And quite obviously they're not
getting any younger

and I think they were hoping
to spend more time

just doing all the things that you
look forward to doing in retirement,

you know, going on holiday more,

spending time with children,
with the grandchildren.

So, yeah, you know,
Dad was definitely looking forward

to retiring and spending
a bit more time on dry land.

With Gareth's retirement
fast approaching,

he and his family looked
to secure their financial future.

Mum and Dad have always been careful
with money.

They've always been thinking
about the future.

They're of that generation,
you know, saving is a massive thing.

As you get older,
you've hopefully paid your mortgage,

so the money that you earn
is more available to you.

So I started looking around at what
the investment opportunities were.

Gareth looks online and finds
a website for an investment company

called CEX Markets, based in London.

I looked at what they did.

They were involved in
currency trading -

not Bitcoin - straight currencies,
major currencies and other equities.

Their website was
very professional-looking,

and I did feel that this looked like
an organisation

that I could probably trust.

Gareth applies to open an account
and promptly receives a phone call

from a representative
named Paul Kingsley.

When I spoke to Mr Kingsley,

I made it clear that
I wasn't interested

in trying to make a quick profit.

I was looking at something
long term.

I wanted it to become some kind
of steady income stream

and he gave me the reassurances
that their businesses

were a long term view.

I felt the returns
were very reasonable.

And it just seemed very secure.

Dad's always been interested
in these things.

He loves researching them.

And I think he obviously felt that
he had found, you know,

a good investment scheme.

So, yeah. No initial concerns.

Obviously, there must be some degree
of wariness

about when you invest money.

But to alleviate that,
Mr Kingsley said,

"Well, why don't you make
a small investment first,

"then you can follow the returns

"and become confident that
what we're doing is reliable?"

This chap obviously knew
what he was talking about.

So, he was able
to make Gareth feel relaxed

and confident
that all would be well.

When you phone up and you can speak
to the same person again and again

and again, you think, "Yeah, yeah,
they're in control of it.

"They'll answer my questions.

"They've totally
got a handle on this."

Paul Kingsley, I think,
fairly quickly became a person

you would consider to be
a supportive friend

and you felt confident about.

To convince somebody
to give their money,

you have to be a really
smooth operator.

You have to be really great
with language

and you have to be confident.

So you have to be very personable,
not too pushy,

but direct and professional
and believable.

Filled with confidence,
Gareth decides to invest £5,000.

We talked about
anti-money laundering requirements

from their side,
so again I felt this was realistic.

He said it all had
to go through their people,

make sure it was all legitimate,

and when that was all passed, then
the money was actually transferred

and the first investment
was started.

The thing that I liked about CEX

was you had a website
to be able to check in on,

and you could see how your money
was growing.

You could look at it any time.

You could check these things.

You could log in
and check that everything was fine.

You can phone up
and somebody responds to you

and it's the same person,
someone with a name, you know?

It makes you think, "Yeah, this is
all completely legitimate,

"all fine."

Regular checks on the account

confirmed that it was generating
about 1.5% a month.

On the 5,000 I initially invested,

I think I saw
in the first few months

growth of somewhere around about
£500 or £600.

So of course, you'd be thinking,
"This is great.

"Really glad I took the money
from here and put it in here."

Three months after transferring
£5,000 into CEX Markets,

Gareth decides to invest
even more money.

With the confidence of
the 5,000 growing

and having spoken to Mr Kingsley
and realised

that there were opportunities
to increase the investment,

I decided to invest
a large sum of money.

That investment then continued
to grow.

So once you see it building,
once you see it doing well,

you then think,
"I'd be crazy not to add to this."

So the decision was made, having
given it a lot of careful thought,

to put in £140,000.

So now I've got approximately
£145,000 invested in CEX.

It all looked good.

And it continues to do well.

It continues to all look
completely legit.

So no red flags, nothing to worry
about. Still very happy.

It looked really good.

But if I'd only known.

If I'd only known.

In Oxfordshire,

Gareth Hamblin has transferred
£145,000 from his life savings

to investment firm CEX Markets,

aiming to make long-term returns
for retirement.

I felt that I could look forward
in a few years' time

to having a decent pot of money
that I could rely upon.

And then retirement would be
literally around the corner.

140 miles away, in South Devon,

Jenny and Jeremy have also
spent years saving for retirement.

Jeremy was a very kind, lovely
gentleman and it was, you know,

it was a wonderful relationship.

Mum and Jeremy had a relationship
I think very few people get.

They were very happy.
Incredibly happy.

Very clear to see how much they both
loved each other.

In 2018, Nicola's stepfather Jeremy
is suddenly taken ill.

He had a stroke
and that affected his speech.

It was a shock. It was a big shock.

The damage from the stroke
then came out over hours and days.

There was some confusion
with a few words.

But that got worse and his speech
was affected far worse

as time went on.

We're all very worried as a family.

And clearly Mum was,
you know, devastated from it,

as was, I think, Jeremy,
from what he could, you know,

comprehend and understand.
He knew what had happened.

When it came to finances,

I was lost because he was the one
who always dealt with it.

They were together for 30 years,
and that's a long time.

And then for Mum to all of a sudden

have to start doing the day-to-day
things that she'd never done -

paying all the bills.

I was terrified,
absolutely terrified.

He was really unable
to advise me.

Say yay or nay.

Only a month after Jeremy's stroke,

Jenny is faced with
the responsibility

of managing one of
their investments.

Mum receives a letter to say that
some of her shares are expiring,

and if she doesn't cash them in,
she will lose them.

I think it would have been
about £3,000,

the value of the shares at the time.

It wasn't a great amount,
but it was an amount that I thought,

"Right, I don't want to lose that."

So she cashes the shares in,

and within a month,
the £3,000 is paid to them

and is in her bank account.

Two weeks later, Jenny receives
a call from a man named David Clark,

a representative of an investment
company called Atwood Stanley.

He says that he knows that
she's recently cashed in some shares

and offers her the opportunity
to buy new shares

with the money for a good return.

Mum was told that she would have
a 6% return on the money

and she will have
twice-yearly interest.

She feels that this is something
that would be worth considering.

But she's unable
to consult Jeremy about it

because of the situation
following the stroke.

Without the ability to discuss
the offer with Jeremy,

Jenny ponders on whether
she can trust David Clark

from Atwood Stanley.

David Clark came across
as very professional,

knowledgeable about
what he was talking about

from the financial point of view.

David Clark was a very, very
well-spoken, educated person.

It sounded feasible.

So I trusted him.

And therefore she duly entered into
the agreement with him

and made the transfer of £3,000
to the account

that David Clark had given her.

And so she thinks that,
you know, that's it.

She sits back and hopes that
in six months' time

that she will see a good return
on her money.

Back in Oxfordshire,

Gareth Hamblin's investment
of £145,000 in CEX Markets

has been steadily growing
for over nine months.

I was confident. We had...

..regular contact
with Paul Kingsley.

And I had some more money
that had come available to me

from other investments
that had matured,

and that money had to do something.

So I felt confident enough
to talk to Mr Kingsley

about putting another large sum in.

And we talked about putting in
another £160,000.

Before Dad decides
to put this final big chunk in,

he obviously decided,

"I want to meet this Paul Kingsley
face-to-face."

I felt I was beginning
to know Mr Kingsley so well

that I'd almost like
to make a friend of him

and go for a drink with him.

He was very happy with that.

So he set up a date
and we arranged to go.

Being able to meet somebody
in person and not just somebody

on the end of a phone call
or a website

makes it seem much more legitimate,
much more credible

because you're meeting
a human being.

Meeting face-to-face
is beneficial for an individual

who feels like that person is real,
tangible, trustworthy,

and they'd feel they'd recognise
if someone was lying to their face.

Paul Kingsley agrees to meet Gareth
at Heron Tower

in the City of London.

The building's a big,
glassy, prestigious,

imposing-looking building.
Gives you the feeling

that I'm dealing with genuine,
big operators here.

There was a buzz, I suppose. I felt
sort of, "Yeah, this is good."

I sit in the seat.

About five minutes later,
a gentleman approaches me

and says to me his name was Lewis,

and he was a colleague
of Mr Kingsley.

Lewis looked very sharp.

I would say he was a young man
of about early 30s,

very well-dressed,
very well-presented, very polite.

Lewis tells Gareth that
Paul Kingsley is unable

to attend the meeting in person.

And then while Dad was talking to
him, this Paul Kingsley phones up

and says, "Oh, can I have a chat
with Gareth?

"I'm really, really sorry.

"You know, last-minute thing.
I had to go to Denmark."

He had told me before
that he dealt with banks in Denmark.

And so I was disappointed
not to meet him,

but at the same time I felt, "Well,
it's better that he's getting on

"with business than spending
his time just talking to me."

And so, again, it endorsed
my feeling

that he was doing what he said
he was doing.

I came back home, talked to Marilyn,

and agreed that we would make
the additional investment.

At this stage,
once we'd put the 160,000 in,

we now put 305,000 in total,

which was growing, growing steadily.
I felt confident.

I thought that the future
was secured.

Meanwhile, Jenny continues to speak
to Atwood Stanley's representative,

David Clark, after giving them
£3,000 to invest on her behalf.

Having David Clark constantly
keeping in contact with Mum,

reassuring her and talking to her,

gave her the confidence or the
belief that he was there for her.

And it was probably a bit of
a relief, you know,

to trust somebody, because you
couldn't go to your husband any more

because he's not well enough
for you to go to,

that somebody else is providing that
that platform

and he would look after
the finances.

So he probably was a safety net.

But after several months,
Jenny has a change of heart.

When I started to think about it,
I did want my money back.

I had no interest,

and I thought I would have had
some interest by now.

Mum asked David Clark on
numerous occasions

to either sell the shares
and have the money back

or to have the investments paid back
to her.

But there was always a caveat -
you can have it back,

but you need to give us
a little bit more money first

because of this
financial regulation,

when you hadn't reached the ceiling
limit of your investments

to be able to get it back
at this stage.

I agreed.

Having already paid the 3,000,

the next figure was for...

Was it 22,000?

After Jenny deposits this huge sum,

David Clark tells her that
the £25,000 she has now invested

is still not large enough for her
to withdraw her money.

This time, she's told she needs
to pay a further £18,000.

So Mum transfers this money.

Mum started to become concerned that
the investments were a lot larger

than she was ever anticipating,

bearing in mind this started
from a £3,000 sale of shares.

Every time she had the conversation
with David Clark

about withdrawing the money,

then she was enticed into making
further sums to reach this limit

so that she would then be able
to have the money back.

This is a psychological tactic.

It's often termed as
a sunk cost fallacy.

You've already put money in,
you don't want to lose it,

so you will do whatever you can
in order to secure that money

and get it back.

If you're told you need
to keep investing money

in order to safeguard your initial
investment, you will do.

Feeling hopeful that
her latest investment is sufficient

to retrieve back her funds,
Jenny contacts David Clark.

She's told that the financial
regulations have changed

and he then requests
a further £7,000,

which would take her total
investment to £50,000.

Following a final payment,

Mum comes to the conclusion that
she needs to share it with somebody.

I think she realises deep down
that something's not quite right.

She's constantly being asked
for more money.

It was then I got hold of Nicola

because I couldn't see
where it was all going

and I was frightened.

My mum sounded very distressed,

which is unusual for me
to hear Mum like that.

And she explains to me
that she's done something,

that she feels ashamed,

that she's extremely worried
about it, she can't sleep,

and then explains to me about
these investments that she's made.

So Mum said to me,
"Let's ring David Clark.

"He's a real person. He's there.

"You'll see, he's very nice."

So we did ring David Clark.

He was charming,
he was well-spoken,

you know, he wasn't rude to me.

I was probably rude to him.

I basically said to him, Mum had
been requesting her money back

for quite some time.

Therefore, I wanted to see
some evidence

of these monies being returned.

David Clark assured us he would
be able to get that to us.

And I said to him that
I didn't trust him,

and if I find out that this is not
legitimate investment,

I am going to go to the police.

And at that point,
the conversation ended

with him just reassuring us again
that the investments

were being cashed in and that
Mum would have her money back

and it would be in her account
before Christmas.

Feeling suspicious of David Clark,

Nicola conducts her own research
into Atwood Stanley.

I went online and I searched
Atwood Stanley.

And at the top of the search pages

was the Financial Conduct
Authority's warning

of Atwood Stanley.

They were unregulated,

and there was evidence they'd been
providing financial advice

to individuals
whilst being unregulated.

When I saw the FCA warning...

..I felt sick.

It's just that realisation

that they were never going to
get this money back.

Jenny has invested £50,000
with Atwood Stanley.

But her daughter Nicola
has discovered the company

is on the FCA's warning list
of unauthorised firms.

The hardest thing for me
through all of this

was the going to see my parents,

to tell them that somebody had
stolen money off them.

There I had Jeremy,
who'd had this stroke.

He was there around the table.

And his reaction,
he understood what was going on.

He understood something...

..maybe more than he could actually
tell me,

which I think is so, so sad.

Gareth Hamblin's investment
of £305,000 into CEX Markets

also takes a turn for the worst.

We'd had the money in there
for about 18 months by that stage.

Around about September of 2018,
I was on a ship

and I decided I would have a look
at how my fund was growing.

But as I looked for CEX Markets,
suddenly the site didn't come up.

I couldn't believe it.

First off, I thought there was
something wrong with my computer,

there was something not right.

But I couldn't...
I couldn't get CEX Markets up.

It was just not available.

After trying the online stuff
and nothing opening,

Dad obviously thought, "OK, well,
I'll call this Paul Kingsley,"

who's been this reliable contact,
you know, always picks up the phone.

And when he tries to phone him,
the line is dead.

So, dead line to this guy
who's always been contactable -

I think alarm bells started
to ring.

I made every effort to try
and contact Mr Kingsley via phone,

via email, but he'd just vanished
off the face of the earth.

It was a terrible feeling.

I'm on the ship.
I'm at work.

I don't have my family around me.

And I've suddenly realised
I've lost a lot of money.

Our investment with CEX is gone.

My thoughts were...

..how do I tell people about this?

Who do I let know first?

I need to ring Marilyn.

So after a few minutes, after I'd
plucked up courage, I rang Marilyn.

He phones me...

..and I had never heard him
so distraught.

He... Well, he couldn't speak.

He just couldn't get
the words out.

And then he said,
"Something terrible's happened.

"We've lost the money in CEX.
It's disappeared."

The worst bit of this story
with Mum and Dad

is the fact that Dad was at sea,

and I think he had several weeks yet
of his contract

before he was coming home.

And I think it's very hard to fathom

how difficult that would be
to live with.

There's no doubt about it -

I did think something drastic
might happen.

It could have been a possibility

that he might have tried
to end his life.

I don't think he would have done,

but I'm 5,000 miles away,
so I don't know that for sure.

It will be another six weeks
before Gareth returns home.

While Marilyn waits for him, she
takes matters into her own hands.

Mum definitely took over
the pragmatic role

of wanting to get to the bottom of
who these people were

and how they'd managed to do this.

So she took it to Action Fraud.

Nicola also decides
to contact Action Fraud

to tell them she believes her mum
has fallen victim to a scam.

I know that I need to report this
to Action Fraud.

If there was any hope
of getting any money back,

I needed to do it as soon
as possible.

Action Fraud also receives calls
from other people

reporting similar scams,

all of which are forwarded
to the City of London Police.

I was working as
a detective constable

on our financial investigation unit.

At that time, we had a number
of intelligence reports coming in

that people seemed to be
falling prey to investment fraud.

There are similarities between
each case.

Everybody had lost a lot of money.

Often the victims were elderly

or people certainly with
a disposable income.

They all understood and believed
what they were doing was right,

and they were helping themselves
and their family going forward.

But the lights had gone out
on their investment

and they were left with nothing.

There was around 12 victims.
I need to speak to the victims.

I need to understand a bit of
the background

into what they believed
was happening.

Detective Inspector Nichola Meghji
and her team

listen to how the victims
were first contacted.

A number of people had received
cold calls,

and we believe that they would
have been on a list.

Their data is obtained and
it's sold usually on the dark web.

Others had gone online and they'd
searched "Best investments to make".

And at the top of Google
had come a website address

where they completed in their name
and phone number

and they call it a warm call -
they were called off that list.

Police also look into the companies

in which the victims
invested their money.

All of our investors had invested
in three companies,

and it becomes apparent to me
very quickly

that the companies are
totally fraudulent.

They're not at the premises
where they were supposed to be,

and there is no legitimacy
about them at all.

So at this point,
I'm confident there's a fraud,

and I'm confident that we need to
launch an investigation into it.

I was angry. Shocked.

Just unbelievable.

Just unbelievable that
somebody has no conscience.

I don't have any words
to describe it. It was devastating.

How could these people do this?

How could they manage to appear to
be so genuine and yet be so false?

It makes me hugely angry.

They have no idea about my parents.

They have no idea about
what they've sacrificed -

all the Christmases
that my dad's missed,

all the birthdays that he's missed,

all the school performances,
holidays, all sorts of things.

Who is it for these people
to take their money from them?

It's just extremely upsetting.

It started off
as these three companies,

but as the intelligence and
investigation evidence developed,

it became very clear
that, actually,

we were looking at multiple
boiler rooms, as we'd call them.

A boiler room investment fraud

is where a scammer sells
worthless shares to its investors.

This is effectively an office
with a bank of phones in

where people are
cold calling people.

These are people that have looked on
the internet to invest their money.

With this type of fraud,

the tactics that
these investment fraudsters use

are very sophisticated.

They even have sounds behind them
such as phones ringing,

the click-clacking of keyboards,

everything that makes it seem
legitimate and credible.

These fraudsters are often
very well-spoken, very eloquent,

and they seem very professional,

the kind of person that you wouldn't
question their legitimacy

and you would believe them
and you'd seek advice from.

Police look at the fake
investment companies' bank accounts

to see what happened to
the victims' money.

I look at the money coming in
from the investor.

I then have to trace
where that money's gone.

And from the tracing of that money,

it identifies additional bank
accounts that we need to obtain.

So you obtain an initial
ten bank accounts,

follow the money, and that might
lead to obtaining 50 bank accounts.

And from those bank accounts,

the movement of money became
quite large quite quickly.

Police also discover that the funds
were transferred

across a web of accounts,
including cryptocurrency accounts,

and even foreign accounts

in countries such as the UAE
and Lithuania.

It became apparent to me then

that this was a really sophisticated
and complex investigation.

When DI Meghji and her team
look further into the accounts,

they discover something else.

When I obtain bank accounts,

I look to identify
the fraudulent account,

and then I almost reverse it

so that then I can see who's paid
into the account,

which is where, very, very quickly,
the victim list grew from 12

to, as it stands, over 300.

We didn't realise it was as massive
as it was.

I was shocked, absolutely shocked.

KATE: Every one of these families
affected has a story.

It's not the same as Mum and Dad's.

But they've screwed
all these people's lives up.

Some of the investors would have
invested 10,000

and some nearing 500,000.

It's not just elderly,
vulnerable people falling victim.

We have in this case victims
who are solicitors,

victims who are doctors,

victims who are 30
and victims who are 90,

so this really is affecting anyone
in society.

It shows the ability
of these fraudsters

to make their frauds relevant
and interesting and appealing

to absolutely everybody.

They're a bit like chameleons,
really.

They can design the way they talk
to make it feel absolutely relevant

to whoever it is
they're contacting.

I felt ashamed...

..that that amount of money
had gone.

I know she started to feel
very ashamed

that she might have done
something wrong,

which she didn't need to.

But totally understandable that
someone would feel like that.

KATE: Dad was obviously in
a really bad place.

Very depressed.
He didn't want to eat.

He was very quiet.

I think this really shook him
to his core.

I think it makes you feel
enormously vulnerable.

It's an enormous knock
to confidence.

We have two daughters,
now four grandchildren.

You feel you've let everybody down.

What am I going to do? What am I
going to do for the future?

How am I ever going to be able
to retire?

I've lost everything.
I've lost everything.

Meanwhile, the police continue
with their investigation.

With almost all cases
of investment frauds,

what we find is that the victims
have formed a relationship

with the person
at the end of the phone.

People would be hoping that
we'd find a Dave Clark

and find a Paul Kingsley.

But actually, they're alias names,

and therefore we can never
find them.

But also the people working
in the boiler room,

some of them might not even realise
they're involved in fraud.

They might think they're in
a call centre developing sales leads

for genuine investments.

So we have to work hard to explain
to victims

that we have a limit
as to who we can target.

JENNY: I thought it was David Clark.

You won't know who they are
or where they are

because they probably have gone.

They could have been
innocent people. We don't know.

The police believe
the different boiler rooms

were run by the same people
and direct their focus

to identifying those in charge
of the operations.

We were always after
where the money went to.

And that's the person I go after.

That's done by analysing
the bank statements.

Police discover that over £1 million
of the scammed money

was transferred by
a man named John Mayer

to a legitimate Bitcoin
converting company.

I made a lot of enquiries to
work out if the name John Mayer

was legitimate, but it wasn't -
it was actually an alias name.

The only clue to
John Mayer's true identity

is the telephone number they used
to conduct business

with the Bitcoin converting company.

I could not attribute this phone
to a person.

I found out it was a pay-as-you-go
phone with no details.

Having had no luck
with looking at the calls

and the texts to the phone,

the next step will be to look at
plotting where the phone has been

using GPS data.

With this phone, we have to put
that phone in someone's hand.

We have to find out the locations

of where that person
holding the phone is.

What we saw was that
the phone had travelled

to a number of UK airports.

The idea is then to try
and find who was on those flights

and where they were heading to.

Using an analyst's skills,
we were able to overlay flight data

with this phone number to work out
what our commonality was.

We looked at the manifests
of flights within the time span

of where the phone was pinged
and where it was live.

What I need to do now is to
work out whether we have one person

that has boarded
all of these flights

and taken that phone with them
to work out who my suspect is.

Police are using
flight and phone data

to track down a suspect who they
believe received over £1 million

that was conned out of
hundreds of victims

in a sophisticated boiler room scam.

Having undertaken this process
of matching up flight manifests

with the GPS data,

we were able to come up
with one person

that had travelled across
all of the six flights -

and that person
was Jonathan Arafiena.

Now we've got a name,
we must quickly act on it

and look to make an arrest. So it's
really important then to work out

where Jonathan Arafiena lives.

Police are able to link Arafiena
to two London properties -

one in Vauxhall, and one in Soho.

I went to the address in Vauxhall.

The apartment was empty, but it was
furnished very expensively.

Inside the property were
a number of very high-value watches.

There were expensive clothes,
expensive shoes,

lots of jewellery. So it really did
appear that someone living

a very nice lifestyle
had been staying at the address.

As police search the property,
they make an important discovery.

We recovered the SIM card used
to contact the Bitcoin company.

So, a fantastic find,

which really proved to me
that we had got the right person.

Meanwhile, DI Meghji's other team
head towards the Soho property

with a search warrant.

They have been able
to knock on the door,

and Jonathan Arafiena has answered.

Let me see your hands.

All right, right, sit up.

He'd just got out of bed.
I think we woke him up.

People like Jonathan Arafiena
and other sophisticated criminals

don't ever expect to be caught.

He'd gone to great lengths
to conceal who he was.

And I would say
it was a real shock to him

that the police were at his door
that morning.

Arafiena is arrested
and his Soho property is searched.

Rather similar
to the other property,

he had watches and jewellery

and extremely expensive shoes
and clothes,

which we looked to then seize

so that we can try
and recoup some of that money.

Arafiena also had
a Rolls-Royce Wraith.

It was parked outside the address,
and that was seized as well.

But it's Arafiena's phone that is
a key piece of evidence against him.

Nothing had been deleted.

There was full evidence of all
that he was involved with on there.

On his phone was a number
of victims' details.

Within the contact details
wasn't just phone numbers,

there was PIN numbers,
account numbers.

And ultimately, that's what's proved
the case

and allowed the police
to get the prosecution.

Arafiena is not charged
in connection with the fraud itself.

The police find evidence
that he received money conned out

of the victims and he is charged
with money laundering.

We were very happy

to be able to feel that
somebody was being held accountable.

Police also charge two other people.

One of them was his right-hand man

who was assisting him
with cashing out on money.

And the other person was the person
setting up the websites,

the landing pages and dealing with
the Google ads in this case.

While police gather their evidence
for a court case,

Jenny and Nicola receive
devastating news.

I...

..had a phone call from my mum.

They'd had an appointment
at hospital.

She was very, very, very upset.

She said he's diagnosed
with leukaemia.

That was hard.

And he never did anything, really,
much after that again.

He just sort of...gradually
went down.

And he died the following January.

It was...devastating.

Just like nothing's the same again,
is it?

With the fraud, he never saw
the finish of it, sadly.

Realising he wouldn't get away
with his crimes,

Arafiena pleads guilty
to money laundering.

The police were able to,
through very, very diligent work

and putting a lot of people on this
for a long time,

were able to build
a case against Arafiena

that was so watertight, he had
no opportunity but to plead guilty

because of the substantial amount
of evidence against him.

In February 2024,

Jonathan Arafiena's hearing takes
place at Southwark Crown Court.

I said to Gareth,
"I am going to that.

"Come hell or high water,
I'm going to that."

I just need to see who was capable
of doing these things.

My mum wanted to go, she wanted to
see what the defendants looked like.

And I think she just felt
she needed it for closure.

A number of the victims were asked
to make victim statements

and were read out in the court,

and you realise how many lives
this man, Jonathan Arafiena,

has impacted -
thousands of people's lives,

not just the 350 people
who are directly involved,

but all the people associated
with them.

So the impact of what he's done
is absolutely huge.

The courtroom is informed

of how Arafiena had spent
his victims' money.

There was around £12 million
of sums invested and lost,

and we were able to directly link
3.5 million to Jonathan Arafiena.

The majority of it has just been
spent on him having a lovely life.

GARETH: He's living
in big apartments in London

and living a lifestyle
which far exceeds anything

that any of us could ever envisage.

He spent £14,000
on concierge services.

He had the Rolls-Royce car
worth in excess of £200,000.

The money was spent on
lavish holidays,

high-end jewellery,
designer clothes.

He's paid off his parents' mortgage
with my money.

It's infuriating.

It's not like this man did
anything good with this money.

He just spent it on
completely frivolous things

that my parents would never have
spent their money on.

I mean, if that does not make you
angry, nothing will.

I mean, you know, these are
good people who had money set aside

for good purposes,
and this person just took it

and just blew it, completely.

As the court hearing
comes to a close,

Jonathan Arafiena is sentenced
to five years and nine months

in prison.

The other two men
receive suspended sentences.

We had worked on this investigation
for five years,

so to see that end result was
really rewarding.

But we still saw no remorse.

GARETH: It's hard to express
my feelings

as far as Jonathan Arafiena
is concerned.

I feel that the sentence
he's been given,

in all honesty,
is wholly inadequate.

I think he should have been
locked up for at least ten years.

Following Arafiena's sentencing,

Jenny has received back almost half
of her £50,000 loss.

Unfortunately, Jeremy never saw
the conclusion,

but the police were able
to successfully get £22,000 back.

I was very fortunate.

I just feel so sad

that, obviously, nobody else said
they'd had any money back.

So I feel, really, for them.

Gareth Hamblin is waiting
to find out

if he will get back
any of his missing £305,000.

It is very galling
to think he took that money

and put it somewhere that
he thought it was going to be safe,

to grow it, ready to come home,
ready to retire with.

To know that that has not been
what's happened to that money

is extremely upsetting.

Rather than Dad retiring,
he'll still be working

trying to recover money that
he should never have had

to try to recover,
because he'd already earned it.

It's not just the money
that's been taken from me,

but it's the time.
It's the time I've lost -

the time with the grandchildren,
the time with my wife.

We're both getting older.

And that's what these criminals
have done to me.

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