Two Dubai Expats Face 500 Year Jail Sentences For Massive Financial Fraud

Following their arrest in 2016, the two traders were finally found guilty and sentenced to 500 years’ imprisonment for their involvement in a $200 million currency trading scam.

Ryan Fernandez and Sydney Lemos, both currency traders, had defrauded clients through their Exential Group firm and were first arrested when an investor claimed promised returns had not been paid out. Following the complaint, the Dubai government’s Department of Economic Development ordered the business to cease trading. The pair had touted investments supposedly yielding as much as 100 per cent, and are thought to have defrauded around 5,000 investors.

In an attempt to trace and return some of the millions lost by Exential Group’s clients, the business’s Dubai assets were seized, 25 bank accounts were frozen and closed and global asset freezes are continuing in the USA, Australia, Canada, India and the British Virgin Islands as well as in the UAE. During the investigation it was discovered that Sydney Lemos had started yet another financial scam, this time aimed directly at cabin crew members working for Emirates.

His team of salesmen promised up to 120 per cent return on investments in foreign currencies via a UK registered website under the name of UT Markets, with some 6.000 investors involved, 95 per cent of whom are employed by the national airline. Lemos was arrested for the second time, and appeared in court with Fernandez to hear his sentence.

A number of the pair’s victims are now being helped by UK-based Carlton Huxley, a private law enforcement and legal consultancy company specialising in financial fraud. According to the firm’s senior investigator Bill Ferguson, steps are being taken to recover losses from Exential’s British Virgin Islands parent company FCI Markets Ltd. Ferguson believes that, even now, the Dubai authorities are failing to appreciate the massive size of the total losses, nor the implications for the emirate’s airline industry.

It seems the majority of those scammed were employed in the industry, had borrowed significant sums in order to invest and cannot now make the payments due on their debts. Carlton Huxely investigators are now working with lawyers whose experience includes the infamous Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. ‘