UK citizens charged in Brooklyn Federal Court for multimillion-dollar loan scheme
They allegedly didn’t possess valuable bottles of wine, offered as collateral
An indictment was filed Monday in Brooklyn Federal Court charging Stephen Burton and James Wellesley, both citizens of the United Kingdom, with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy in connection with a scheme perpetrated through their company, Bordeaux Cellars, the trade name for two private limited companies, Bordeaux Cellars, Limited and Bordeaux Cellars London Ltd., registered, respectively, in Hong Kong and London, England.
Wellesley was arrested on Feb. 4, 2022 in the United Kingdom, and Burton remains at large as a fugitive.
From at least June 2017 and continuing through February 2019, Burton and Wellesley allegedly posed as executives of a company called Bordeaux Cellars. They solicited investors, including residents of the Eastern District of New York, at investor conferences held in the United States and overseas.