Accountant Timothy Entwistle, 57, who lived in an 11-bedroom mansion near Yeovil, Somerset, and educated his three children at public school despite being a declared bankrupt, masterminded the finances.
Accountant: Timothy Entwistle lived a luxury lifestyle in a £1m mansion
Fraudsters: Evangelia Liogka and Christakis Philippou conned thousands of people into buying their 'bargain holidays'Instead, the £7million they handed over collectively went into the pockets of crooked travel agents who masterminded a three-year scam to fund lavish lifestyles.Some customers ended up in the resort of their choice before finding out that their booking didn't exist.Groups who went to Cyprus were branded illegal immigrants when they turned out to have nowhere to stay.Others arrived at UK airports to be told their names weren't on the flight list.Many found their tickets didn't arrive as expected two weeks before their planned departure date.When they called the travel company, the phone number no longer worked and they could find no trace of the firm.Victims included honeymooners, a seriously-ill man taking his dream holiday, a couple celebrating their silver wedding and a group of disabled children.John Reynolds, the former Lord Provost of Aberdeen, the city's mayor, was duped two years running.Police started investigating following a flood of complaints in the wake of the alleged transatlantic airline bomb plot in the summer of 2006.Concerned about their flights, dozens of worried travellers called the bogus firm to get advice but the fraudsters had already shut it down.The ringleader was Christakis Philippou, 64, a Cypriot with dual British nationality.He worked with his mistress Evangelia Liogka, 40, also a Cypriot. The couple share a £3million townhouse in Chelsea.He has since moved to Chilcombe, Dorset. He and Philippou were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court yesterday of five charges of conspiring to defraud customers of a travel business that they took over dishonestly.
Liogka was found guilty of four counts of conspiring to defraud customers. She was cleared of one other count.
A fourth person, travel agent Peter Kemp, 52, from Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud at an earlier hearing.
The gang will be sentenced in April.The group made nearly £7million between 2003 and 2006 by setting up travel companies which would initially trade legally, either on the internet or on Teletext, attracting business with bargain holidays in Greece, Spain and Cyprus.
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