NINE WOMEN MASTERMINDED £21M SCAM THAT FLEECED 10,000 VICTIMS

 Rita Lomas (left) and Jane Smith admitted in 2012 

to promoting the £21m get-rich-quick pyramid scheme, 

called Give and Take. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Get-rich-quick pyramid scheme, called Give and Take or Key to a Fortune, caused a loss to the public of about £19m. Nine women have been found guilty of running a £21m get-rich-quick scheme, fleecing at least 10,000 victims after luring them in with "champagne celebration nights" and encouraging them to "beg, borrow or steal" the £3,000 needed to invest in the scam. The victims, often vulnerable women, were told they would receive a £24,000 payout when they reached the top of their pyramid chart, with organisers promising they could not lose. The scheme, called Give and Take (G&T), spread from Bath and Bristol to the West Country and Wales between May 2008 and April 2009. Committee members at the top of the scheme pocketed up to £92,000 each, while 88% of their victims lost between £3,000 and £15,000. G&T, also known as Key to a Fortune, was kept secret as members were forbidden from writing about it to protect the organisers. But it was uncovered when an employer in Bristol complained to UK trading standards that it was being promoted in his workplace. Eleven women, aged 34 to 69, became the first in the UK to be prosecuted under new legislation in the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Act 2008. Six of the women have been sentenced, while three will be sentenced at Bristol crown court next month. One woman was acquitted of promoting the scheme, while two juries failed to reach a verdict for another woman on the same charge. Judge Mark Horton, who banned reporting of the case until Thursday, said: "This scheme caused a loss to the public of around £19m. A number of women suffered enormous and in some cases lifelong financial hardship due to their involvement.

 "The public need to be aware that schemes like this lead to the destruction of lifelong friendships and families and in some cases whole communities." On Wednesday scheme coordinator Mary Nash, 65, committee secretary Susan Crane, 68, and games coordinator Hazel Cameron, 54, pleaded guilty to charges of operating and promoting the scheme. The women had been due to face a retrial, after a jury last year failed to reach verdicts in their cases. In 2012 Sally Phillips, 34, and Jane Smith, 50, both of Bristol, and Rita Lomas, 49, of Whitchurch, Somerset, admitted promoting the scheme. The three received suspended sentences: Phillips three months, Smith four months and Lomas four-and-a-half months. Following a five-month trial in 2012, chairman Laura Fox, 69, treasurer Jennifer Smith-Hayes, 69, and venue organiser Carol Chalmers, 68, were convicted of operating and promoting the scheme. Fox, of East Harptree, Somerset, Smith-Hayes of Bristol, and Chalmers, of Weston-super-Mare, were jailed for nine months. They have now served their sentences. The scheme operated on 15-space pyramids, each space filled with a participant who paid £3,000 and introduced two friends who paid the same amount. Once the chart was filled, the eight people on the bottom paid their £3,000 to the person at the top, called the "bride". Payouts were collected at champagne parties, where "brides" were asked a series of simple questions before being handed the £24,000 on a silver plate. Questions included "what is the name of the tower in Paris" and "what type of animal is a great dane", with the option to ask a friend if the "bride" did not know the answer. Then £1,000 was deducted from the payout, with £600 shared between charities and £400 used to pay committee costs. Around £19m of the £21m scheme was lost on the charts, while the remaining £2m was paid out to the "brides". Miles Bennett, who prosecuted both trials, told how parties took place at the Battleborough Grange Hotel in Burnham-on-Sea, owned by Chalmers. Mobile phone footage from one party showed Fox shouting: "We are gambling in our own homes and that's what makes it legal." Bennett described the evenings as a "commercial practice", with minutes from committee meetings showing how £240,000 in cash was paid out one evening. "This wasn't a kitchen hobby, this was a scheme that sucked in a lot of people and which worked on the promise of them receiving riches way beyond their initial investment." Bennett added: "It is clear that, blinded by the possibility of riches and quick bucks, people were quite prepared to ignore the bleeding obvious pitfalls of a pyramid scheme."                   Culled from Guardian