Fugitive FX Ponzi scheme boss assumed dead on the run may be alive: Police

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The fugitive boss of a bogus London FX firm convicted as the mastermind behind a Ponzi-style investment scheme, was thought to have died in Mexico while on the run, but London police aren’t so sure.

Anthony Constantinou stole at least £70 million (US$95.1 million) from investors he lured with the promise of risk free returns, and was sentenced to 14 years in prison in his absence. News outlets including UK tabloid The Sun and Miami-based website OffshoreAlert reported that Constantinou died of a heart attack in July 2024 while in Guadalajara, Mexico.

A death certificate has been filed in Mexico and seen by the City of London Police, but investigators remain unconvinced that Constantinou has actually died, according to lawyers at a court hearing on Thursday.

They have evidence of Constantinou’s cremation within 24 hours of his death, but some of the documents reviewed contain inaccuracies, including that Constantinou’s mother was Mexican. He is known to be of Greek-Cypriot heritage.

“There remains an active search for his whereabouts,” David Durose, a prosecution lawyer, said in court. “If there were more legitimate grounds to believe that the defendant may have died the Crown would be looking more carefully at it.”

Constantinou had no legal representation at the hearing.

The police want to recover some of the investor cash that was lost in the scheme and asked the judge to make an order that would help them seize assets. So far recoveries have been minimal, despite Constantinou enjoying a lavish lifestyle, with money being traced through a number of offshore jurisdictions.

Constantinou was sentenced in his absence after he disappeared weeks into his trial in 2023. A warrant for his arrest was issued shortly after. Weeks after he disappeared he was arrested in Bulgaria for carrying fake identification documents, but for unknown reasons he was let go.

His firm, CWM, lured in victims with false promises of generous returns on risk-free foreign exchange market transactions and lavish perks. Operating out of an office in the City of London’s Heron Tower, he enticed investors from late 2013 by boasting of generous returns on allegedly risk-free foreign exchange market transactions, for a minimum investment of £100,000.

Client funds were also used to boost Constantinou’s lifestyle including his £2.5 million wedding in Santorini, the court heard.