His business partner was also convicted of fraud
- Alex Hope fraudulently secured a £25,000 Bounce Back Loan after inflating his company's turnover
- He laundered funds from two loans through multiple accounts to help buy a property in Lanzarote
- Business partner Liam Jones was also convicted of fraud over a £56,000 loan the pair obtained for their cannabidiol (CBD) company
A CBD brand boss has been sentenced for fraud and money laundering after transferring loan funds through multiple accounts to help buy a property in Lanzarote.
Alex Hope, 41, was director of management consultancy A Hope Ltd when he fraudulently secured a £25,000 Bounce Back Loan in 2020.
He was also a director of Virtutum Limited, which traded as CBD Asylum in Hull, when the company secured a £56,000 loan from a private lender in 2021.
Funds from both loans were laundered through a number of accounts before being used to help purchase the property for Hope and his wife.
Hope's business partner and co-director at Virtutum Limited, Liam Jones, 42, was also convicted of one count of fraud in relation to the £56,000 loan.
The pair had signed the loan agreement, giving personal guarantees that no litigation was taking place against them.
In reality, both defendants had been pursued by a specialist litigation firm for around £800,000 since 2019.
Both defendants pleaded guilty on the day of their trial at Hull Crown Court in June this year and were sentenced on Monday 27 July.
Hope, of Elm Tree, Halsham, East Yorkshire, was convicted of two counts of fraud, one count of money laundering, and one count of failing to disclose the value of company shares while bankrupt.
He was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for three years, disqualified as a company director for eight years, and ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work.
Jones, of Edinburgh Drive, Holton-le-Clay, Lincolnshire, was sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for 18 months.
He was also disqualified as a company director for two years and ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work.
Mark Stephens, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:
Alex Hope deliberately lied about his company's turnover to secure a Covid loan meant to help businesses survive the pandemic.
He then laundered the proceeds of both fraudulent loans through a string of bank accounts, using the money to help buy a property abroad.
Hope and Liam Jones also lied about a legal case against them to fraudulently secure that second loan.
The Insolvency Service remains committed to holding those who exploit loan schemes and financial systems for personal gain to account.
Hope was the sole director of A Hope Ltd, incorporated in August 2012.
In August 2020, he fraudulently applied for the £25,000 Bounce Back Loan by declaring a turnover of £100,000, when the company's accounts showed less than £13,000.
Virtutum Limited was set up in September 2017, with Hope as its sole director before Jones joined as a second director in October 2019. The pair said they wanted their products to allow "the benefits of CBD to be experienced through many different walks of life."
Hope moved funds from both loans through a series of accounts before transferring the money abroad.
The funds formed part of a payment of €245,825 used to purchase a two-storey, semi-detached house in Puerto Calero in the names of Hope and his wife.
Both Hope and Jones were declared bankrupt in March 2022. Hope went on to commit a further offence by failing to disclose the true value of his shares in Aspen Homes Hull Limited to the trustee in his bankruptcy.
The Insolvency Service is seeking to recover the fraudulently obtained funds under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
