The dad of football star Gareth Bale’s fiancée Emma Rhys-Jones has been jailed for six years over a multi-million pound shares scam.
Martin Rhys-Jones must also repay £2.2million he swindled from dozens of victims including an Alzheimer’s sufferer he fleeced of £300,000.
Rhys-Jones, 52, and his associates sold worthless stocks at hugely inflated prices. Salesmen working for him in Barcelona used high pressure tactics to sell shares that were restricted and worth almost nothing.
Rhys-Jones, of Cardiff, was prosecuted in the US as some of the cash went through an account in New York state before being moved overseas.
US District Judge Elizabeth Wolford said he engaged in “fraud plain and simple” in the three-year scam with 250 victims in the UK, US and Canada.
He admitted money laundering. Judge Wolford said he was “motivated by greed and self interest and didn’t take into account the people you were harming.”
She said he will be deported on release. He has already served four years in custody in Spain and the US, so could be released in the next year.
