District Court in Gdańsk has sentenced the Amber Gold pyramid scheme mastermind Marcin P. for 15 years in prison. His wife Katarzyna P. has been sent to prison for 12.5 years. This is the final of a trial in one of the highest-profile cases in recent years. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
The trial of both defendants began in March 2016. The court started to read out the verdict on May 20 this 2019. Due the complexity of the case, the judge was forced to read out names of all those who had fallen victim to Amber Gold - over 18.000 people. It took the court nearly five months to it.
In May, the court found Marcin P. and his wife Katarzyna P. guilty of the main charge - fraud.
Marcin P. has heard four charges in total, and his wife - ten. Prosecution demanded 25 years in prison for both defendants. Defense wanted full acquittal.
According to the prosecution, between 2009 and 2012, Marcin P. and his wife set up a pyramid scheme that defrauded over 18.000 clients of a total of 851 million zlotys. Charges also pertained to shadow banking and money laundering.
The prosecution claimed that Marcin P. and Katarzyna P. had been driven by financial gains and treated the scheme as permanent source of income.
Amber Gold was advertising itself as a company investing in gold and other precious metals. It was operating since 2009, and lured their clients with high return interest rates - from 6 up to even 16.5 percent per annum - which were significantly higher than bank deposits. On August 2012, the company went into liquidation, not paying out their money and interest to clients.
Marcin P. and Katarzyna P. were spending the money paid in by their clients on various things, such as financing OLT Express airlines (no longer existing carrier - Amber Gold was the main investor) with nearly 300 million zlotys. Part of the revenue was spent on wages. It's been determined that the defendants paid out 18.8 million zlotys to themselves.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP