![\"The](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2022\/11\/29\/15\/65051241-11481889-image-a-1_1669735251196.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe ex-Charlton Athletic player, Richard Rufus, 47,\u00a0allegedly conned friends and family out of \u00a315million in a pyramid scheme by claiming\u00a0current and ex-footballers were also on board<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rufus, who made 288 appearances for Charlton after joining the club in 1993, is said to have used some of the \u00a315 million invested to pay back investors in a pyramid scheme, while some was used for his own purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prosecutor Lucy Organ said Rufus appeared to ‘able to maintain a lifestyle of a footballer’ long after he was forced into retirement in 2004 because of failed knee surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She told jurors he enjoyed the ‘trappings of wealth’, living in a big five-bedroom house on a private estate in leafy Purley, south London, driving a Bentley and wearing a Rolex watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ms Organ said: ‘He scammed friends, family and associates out of millions of pounds by pretending he was able to offer a low-risk investment in the foreign exchange market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘He claimed that he had had significant success with his strategy in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘In reality, the investments were fraught with risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘He lost their money hand over fist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘The investors, rather than getting the risk-free returns they were promised, lost a great deal of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Mr Rufus took over \u00a315 million pounds in total. He traded some of it, as I have said, losing vast amounts, but that wasn’t the end of the fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Of that money, about \u00a32 million he never even transferred to foreign exchange trading accounts. He used this money partly to prop up the losses that his scams were making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Making payments back to other investors to continue the pretence that they were making a good investment, a so-called “pyramid scheme” and partly simply for his own benefit, treating the money he received from investors as his own.’ Of the \u00a315million paid by investors into Rufus’ personal account, only \u00a37million went into his trading account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rufus, from Crystal Palace, south-east London, denies three counts of fraud, using around \u00a32 million in criminal property and carrying out a regulated activity without authorisation, between May 2007 and April 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prosecutor Lucy Organ said Rufus appeared to ‘able to maintain a lifestyle of a footballer’ long after he was forced into retirement 2004 as a result of the scams<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jurors were told he remained on good terms with Charlton following his retirement, being invited to become an ambassador for a charity linked to the club, and was a committed member and trustee of a church, the Kingsway International Christian Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Described as ‘charismatic and energetic’, he claimed to have a track record of being a successful foreign exchange or foreign currency trader to persuade investors parting with their money was a safe and low-risk bet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Ms Organ said Rufus made ‘huge losses’, while around \u00a32 million put into his personal accounts for the purposes of investment was never even transferred to his trading account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One investor was ex-Charlton and Chelsea defender Paul Elliott, 58, who met Rufus while Mr Elliott was on the Charlton board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court heard Rufus falsely claimed to have made multi-million pound returns investing for a church and good returns for other footballers or ex-footballers, who he could not identify for confidentiality reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Elliott paid Rufus a total of \u00a3425,000 between October 2008 and February 2011, getting back \u00a3460,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms Organ said the returns were not paid from successful trading but out of conning more people into investing in the scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court heard alleged victim Ronabir Deb was told by Rufus that some of his footballing friends, including television pundit Ferdinand, were investing with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Deb allegedly lost his capital of \u00a347,000, while the 23 people who invested through him lost more than \u00a31.7 million pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The four-week trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A former Premier League star\u00a0allegedly conned friends and family out of \u00a315million by claiming footballers including Rio Ferdinand had invested in a foreign exchange trading opportunity that was really a pyramid scheme. Ex-Charlton Athletic defender Richard Rufus, 47, allegedly lost money ‘hand over fist’ after promising investors returns of 60 per cent a year. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":27867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80,12],"tags":[7358,8176,2475,2784,5307,11583,7241,169,8927,6537,10507,305,8768,1258,5455,9127,11638,6085,6225,10954,9343,6580,3684,5721,10634,11252,115,10742,9683,5612,8175,11973,9036,267,6544,8443,8767,12337,2568,5807,9030,9210,13307,11581,10943,594],"class_list":["post-27866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-world-news","tag-bank","tag-barclays","tag-bentley","tag-bet","tag-britain","tag-capital","tag-charity","tag-chelsea","tag-christian","tag-church","tag-court","tag-crystal-palace","tag-defraud","tag-england","tag-family","tag-february","tag-forced","tag-fraud","tag-friends","tag-international","tag-investment","tag-jury","tag-london","tag-losses","tag-lost","tag-manchester","tag-manchester-united","tag-market","tag-millions","tag-money","tag-morgan-stanley","tag-one","tag-pounds","tag-premier-league","tag-property","tag-retirement","tag-richard-rufus","tag-rio","tag-rio-ferdinanrd","tag-risk","tag-success","tag-surgery","tag-trading","tag-trial","tag-watch","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Prosecutor](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2022\/11\/29\/15\/65051419-11481889-image-a-2_1669735615709.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n