British national convicted in California for a $7.3 million investment scam

March 2nd, 2010 - 5:00 am ICT by BNO News  

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (BNO NEWS) – A British national was convicted California after running a multi-million dollar investment scam, prosecutors said Monday.

Robert Tringham, 65, from Nottinghamshire, England, took $7.3 million from victims who were promised that their money would be maintained in safe accounts and used only to back the purchase of bonds.

Tringham set up the First National Bancorp in Rancho Cucamonga to solicit funds that would supposedly be leveraged to trade in discounted Grade A bonds, which would provide investors with guaranteed profits at high rates of return when the bonds were sold.

But Tringham transferred millions of dollars of investor funds to himself to finance purchases such as a house in Diamond Bar, California, and a Land Rover when he had previously told investors that their money would be maintained in separate accounts with a registered broker-dealer. He additionally fabricated evidence, making false statements to federal investigators.

In the United Kingdom, Tringaham had been previously convicted of deception, forgery and theft during the 1980s under his real name, Rodney Duncan Tringham.

Tringham successfully took more than $7 million from investors in 2005 and 2006, failing to pay almost $480,000 in income tax to the IRS.

Convicted on federal fraud and tax evasion charges, Tringham now faces a maximum statutory sentence of 170 years in federal prison.

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