By Ron Coates, 4 June 2003 14:15
NEWS Two dot-com fraudsters were jailed yesterday for siphoning £2.5m out of two start-up low-cost net access and telephone companies based in West London. But Marios Nicoliades and Brian Atkins didn't use any new high-tech methods. They relied on the tried-and-trusted old method of false invoices. Having raised around £3.5m from hundreds of investors for the two companies, Discount Telecom and Free Dot Net, the pair milked most of the money out of them through false or inflated invoices from various marketing and communications companies controlled by Nicoliades. Nicoliades was sentenced yesterday to three-and-a-half years in prison and disqualified as a company director for seven years. Atkins, who had already served 18 months and been struck off as an accountant for a previous crime, got two years for both fraud and for hiding his criminal record and was disqualified for five years. The two were originally charged in 1999 and pleaded ill-health in mitigation. Judge Timothy Pontius said that they were men of "demonstrably dishonest character" before sentencing.
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