A High Court has handed a 15 year ban to a director who operated investment scams that lost consumers at least £13.3 million.

Ian James Hamilton, 37, the director of Industry RE Ltd (IRE), has been disqualified from being a company director for 15 years.

This disqualification follows investigation by the Official Receiver at Public Interest Unit, a specialist team of the Insolvency Service. The Official Receiver’s involvement commenced with the winding up of the company by HM Revenue & Customs.

The Insolvency Service said in a statement: “Under Mr Hamilton’s sole control IRE operated a number of ‘alternative investment’ scams between 2009 and 2013 that have caused losses of at least £13.3 million to members of the public. The main scams were a money circulation scheme and selling interests in land in Dominica that the company never owned.

“The investigation found that Mr Hamilton caused IRE to operate with a want of commercial probity, systematically taking money from consumers on the basis of misleading statements made to consumers.”

IRE traded in a number of business areas, all of which involved a subcontracted telesales operation to “cold call” members of the public, selling “alternative investments” in a variety of projects, according to The Insolvency Service.

Officials explained that IRE received money from consumers by guaranteeing a return on their investments, which was actually a money circulation scheme.

Tony Hanon, Official Receiver at Public Interest Unit, said: “The company persuaded members of the public to part with substantial sums by falsely promising investors extremely high rates of return.

“In reality, the scheme operated only for the benefit of those running the company, principally the director, Ian Hamilton.

“As is so often the case, if an investment scheme appears too good to be true, it probably is.”

The Insolvency Service statement read: “Most investors believed they were purchasing carbon credits, which IRE said that it would repurchase within 12 months for 30% more than investors had paid, and sell the credits onwards to a connected company in Dubai.

“IRE made payments totalling more than £8.6 million to customers that included what were claimed to be investment returns. However, the investigation found that IRE had not made any of the claimed investments and did not receive any profits that it could use to pay investment returns to investors. Instead, IRE had made payments using deposits from other, newer, investors. This is the key characteristic of a money circulation scheme. Investors in the scheme have lost in excess of £5.7 million.

“Some investors in 2009 had paid IRE for “solar bonds” that were to pay a return of 10% per annum for 5 years, and then investors would receive their capital back. IRE did not invest in any such solar scheme and did not receive any profits from which it could make payments to its investors.

“Instead, payments claimed to be “interest” were made from the deposits of newer investors. This was a smaller scheme than the purported carbon credit scheme.

A second principal scheme involved the sale of interests in an “Eco Resort” that it claimed would be built in Dominica. Consumers were persuaded to pay £25,000 for an interest in the supposed resort, and were promised a return of 80% on their investment within 2 years.

Officials said, however, that IRE never told investors that it had not acquired the land on which the resort was to be built and IRE received a total £7.6 million from investors to buy interests in the ‘resort’, none of whom have received any return.