A Seventh Day Adventist who persuaded churchgoers in London to invest millions of pounds in a financial scam that funded his extravagant lifestyle has been jailed for seven years.
Lindani Mangena, 24, of Romford, London, was described as a "modern-day Moses" for his promises to deliver profits of up to 3,000 percent to fellow worshippers.
At Southwark crown court in London judge Peter Testar on Monday condemned Mangena as "pitiless and arrogant" for deceiving more than 1,000 other Seventh Day Adventists.
Some investors, believing God had blessed him, remortgaged, only to lose their homes and life savings. Others struggled to stave off repossession. Many had to forgo holidays, and large numbers were plunged into depression. One victim even gave up his job to join the company.
The court heard that Mangena and two partners set up an office near the Bank of England in the City, London's financial district, and offered bogus investments with "guaranteed" profits.
One victim lost nearly ?200,000 (US$402,000), and the sophisticated seven-month con saw clients hand over a "minimum" of ?3.2 million altogether.
Complaints were met with excuses or "heavies" outside the firm's headquarters.
Money flooded in so swiftly that Mangena installed a cash-counting machine at the offices, while one witness saw "piles" of notes in his luxury apartment.
Stephen Winberg, prosecuting, said ?1 million had disappeared "supporting a wildly extravagant lifestyle ... to which the defendants had not, to put it mildly, been accustomed."
As well as having a deposit on a ?4.5 million apartment, Mangena rented a ?650-a-week luxury flat at St George's Wharf, Vauxhall, south London.
Dean Hinkson, 29, swapped his council house for a home next to his crooked boss and spent ?24,700 on a Mercedes and personalized number plate. He also joined Mangena on a ?10,000 jaunt to the five-star Sheraton hotel in Abu Dhabi, and spent ?55,815 on a one-day stay in the royal suite at Dubai's seven-star Burj al Arab hotel. He was jailed for 15 months. So, too, was Curtis Powell, 31, who blew ?25,000 on a BMW 330i and a further ?35,000 on a BMW X5 for his mother. Police have recovered ?900,000 and are still hunting for more.
Despite trying to blame his co-defendants, Mangena was convicted of fraudulent trading between July 31, 2003 and March 1, 2004, money laundering and carrying on an unauthorized investment business.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
RSS