Bordeaux wine fraud: British man sentenced to 10 years for $97 million scam
James Wellesley, a British citizen, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a federal court in Brooklyn for a Ponzi scheme related to luxury wine.
British man sentenced to ten years for $97 million wine fraud scam
A federal court in Brooklyn sentenced on Tuesday a British national to ten years in prison for orchestrating a $97 million investment fraud in the high-end wine sector, according to information reported by boursorama.com. The scheme, built on false promises, defrauded more than 140 victims in the United States and abroad.
The convicted man, James Wellesley, also operated under the names Andrew Fuller and Andrew Templar. Federal Judge Pamela K. Chen handed down her sentence in Brooklyn and ordered the confiscation of one million dollars. A decision on the amount of damages will be made at a later date.
A Ponzi-type scheme backed by false wine guarantees
According to prosecutors, Wellesley posed as an executive of Bordeaux Cellars and used that company to collect funds from investors between June 2017 and February 2019. He claimed that the company connected outside lenders with wealthy wine collectors, with these loans supposedly guaranteed by valuable collections held by the company. These allegations were false.
In reality, no genuine collector stood behind these operations and Bordeaux Cellars did not hold the wine it claimed to control. Money from new investors was used to pay earlier investors, while a portion of the funds was diverted for personal purposes—a mechanism characteristic of a Ponzi pyramid.
The Wellesley-Burton duo had attracted investors at conferences organised in the United States and abroad, promising them regular interest payments and loans fully backed by wine assets. Payments presented as interest were indeed paid from June 2017 to December 2018, prompting many participants to reinvest in new loans.
$83 million in losses after the collapse
Of more than $97 million raised, only approximately $14 million was repaid before the scheme collapsed, leaving more than $83 million in uncovered losses.
Wellesley's accomplice, Stephen Burton, pleaded guilty in July 2025 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, and still awaits sentencing.
United States Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. stated that Wellesley had "exploited investors from all corners of the globe" by using deception to persuade them to commit tens of millions of dollars. James C. Barnacle Jr., Assistant Director in charge of the FBI's New York office, indicated that Wellesley had "defrauded nearly $100 million" by presenting himself as a broker specialising in fine wine collections, thereby undermining trust in the sector.
The case was handled by the Business and Securities Fraud section of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Source: Google News FR — Crime (fr)