A UK court has ordered two convicted operators of a fake crypto investment scheme to pay a combined £851,402.27, advancing a recovery process for at least 65 investors who lost £1,541,799.
Southwark Crown Court made the confiscation orders on 28 September against Raymondip Bedi, who must pay £603,404.28, and Patrick Mavanga, who must pay £247,997.99. The Financial Conduct Authority said it has identified and contacted victims and will return funds recovered through the confiscation process.
The distinction between an order and a completed recovery matters. The two orders equal about 55.2% of the loss identified by the FCA, leaving a numerical gap of £690,396.73. That comparison does not establish what each victim will ultimately receive or when: confiscation orders impose repayment obligations, while distribution depends on the assets actually collected and the recovery process.
Cold calls, false opportunities and a professional-looking front
According to the FCA, Bedi and Mavanga ran the scheme between February 2017 and June 2019 through companies including CCX Capital and Astaria Group LLP. Consumers were cold-called and directed to a professional-looking website, where they were offered high returns from cryptoasset investments that did not exist.
The conduct combined familiar investment-fraud techniques with the credibility gap created by an emerging asset class: unsolicited contact, polished presentation and promises of attractive returns. The FCA’s earlier case record says both men admitted conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to breach the general prohibition under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which bars regulated activity by a person who is neither authorised nor exempt.
Bedi also pleaded guilty to money-laundering offences. Mavanga pleaded guilty to possessing false identification documents with improper intent and was convicted of perverting the course of justice after deleting phone-call recordings following Bedi’s arrest in March 2019.
Prison sentences preceded the recovery orders
In July 2025, Bedi was sentenced to five years and four months in prison and Mavanga to six years and six months. The FCA said confiscation proceedings were continuing when those sentences were imposed.
The latest orders were made under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The FCA explains that such an order requires an offender to repay the benefit obtained from criminal conduct or the value of available assets, whichever is lower. If payment is not made within three months, Bedi faces up to five additional years in prison and Mavanga up to two additional years. An additional sentence would not cancel the payment obligation.
For victims, the orders are a more concrete step than conviction and imprisonment alone because they attach specified repayment amounts to the offenders. They still should not be described as proof that £851,402.27 is already in hand. The regulator’s wording is forward-looking: it says funds recovered through the process will be returned.
What payment and compliance teams should take from the case
The case shows why fraud controls cannot stop at the point of payment authorisation. A professional website and plausible investment narrative can make a transfer appear intentional even when the customer has been manipulated. Banks, payment institutions and crypto service providers therefore need controls that combine transaction monitoring with customer-contact patterns, beneficiary intelligence, unusual first-time payments and indicators of investment-scam coaching.
Unsolicited investment approaches are a particularly important trigger for friction and intervention. Payment firms should make warnings specific enough to test what the customer believes they are buying, who initiated the contact and whether the supposed provider can be verified. Generic crypto-risk notices are less useful when the underlying problem is not price volatility but a fabricated investment.
The deletion of call recordings also underscores the value of durable evidence controls. Firms exposed to high-risk sales or investment flows should preserve customer communications, onboarding records, device and account links, and transaction histories under access-controlled retention policies. Those records can support internal investigations, regulatory referrals and asset tracing long after the original payments have moved.
Recovery outcomes deserve their own measurement. A prosecution can establish accountability, but victim remediation depends on tracing, restraint, confiscation and collection. Compliance reporting should distinguish losses identified, assets restrained, amounts ordered, cash collected and funds distributed rather than treating them as interchangeable milestones.
The FCA has previously sought to contact affected investors. Anyone who believes they were affected and has not heard from the regulator should use the FCA’s official Consumer Helpline rather than responding to unsolicited recovery offers, which can themselves be fraudulent.