{"id":61092,"date":"2025-07-13T02:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T02:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/61092\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T02:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T02:11:12","slug":"uk-man-extradited-to-nyc-pleads-not-guilty-in-99m-wine-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/61092\/","title":{"rendered":"UK man extradited to NYC pleads not guilty in $99M wine scam"},"content":{"rendered":"

A British man extradited to New York City to face charges in a $99 million fraud scheme involving expensive wine<\/a> pleaded not guilty during his arraignment Friday in Brooklyn federal court.<\/p>\n

James Wellesley and his business partner, Stephen Burton, are accused of running a Ponzi-like scheme by lying to unsuspecting international investors, including New Yorkers, that they were backed by a stockpile of valuable wine and clientele of high-net-worth collectors that didn\u2019t actually exist.<\/p>\n

According to prosecutors, the men\u00a0secured nearly $100 million in sham loans<\/a> and \u201cused incoming loan proceeds to make fraudulent interest payments to investors and for their own personal expenses.\u201d The alleged scam ran from at least June 2017 through February 2019.<\/p>\n

Both men were charged in 2022 with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with the scheme perpetrated through Bordeaux Cellars, a company they allegedly operated.<\/p>\n

Wellesley, 58, was arrested in the U.K. in February 2022. Earlier this year, he lost his fight against extradition to the U.S.<\/a> after a judge at London\u2019s High Court ruled that most of the losses caused by the alleged fraud \u201coccurred or were intended to occur in the U.S.,\u201d Reuters reported in May.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Wellesley was arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy and pleaded not guilty to the charges. He was ordered to be detained pending trial.<\/p>\n

Burton, a 60-year-old British national, pleaded guilty to the same charges in late 2023 after he was extradited from Morocco,<\/a> where he had entered the country using a fake Zimbabwean passport.<\/p>\n

With News Wire Services<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British man extradited to New York City to face charges in a $99 million fraud scheme involving…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":61093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5295,1370,108,405,403,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-61092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-national-news","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114843502941051464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}