Three men from Penzance involved in a multi million pound foreign exchange scam have all received custodial sentences.

A fourth defendant, Susan Benstead received a suspended custodial sentence.

This follows their convictions for fraud on May 7 following a trial lasting nine weeks at Southwark Crown Court.

All four defendants stood trial in relation to offences of fraudulent trading, false accounting, money laundering and theft. During the trial one of the defendants, 72-year-old Peter Benstead, the company director, was found dead in his car.

The sentences followed a tw year and nine month police investigation by the Force’s Economic Crime Unit into the failure of three companies, namely, Crown Currency Exchange Ltd (CCE), Crown Holdings Ltd (CHL) and Mayfair & Grant Ltd (M&G).

This is the largest fraud investigation ever undertaken by the Devon & Cornwall force.

Julian Benstead aged 46 years from Penzance was sentenced to 2 1/2 years imprisonment for fraudulent trading.

Roderick Schmidt aged 46 years from Penzance was sentenced to a total 5 years imprisonment for fraudulent trading, theft and false accounting.

Stephen Matthews aged 51 years from Penzance was sentenced to 4 years for false accounting.

All three men were supsended from acting in a Director capacity for 5, 7 and 5 years respectively.

Susan Benstead aged 70 years from Penzance was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment suspended for 2 years for money laundering.

Devon and Cornwall Police will now pursue the confiscation of criminal assets with a view to obtaining compensation for the victims who have provided statements of loss to the police

2,500 customers were left out of pocket to the tune of nearly £20 million when the Cornish-based firm went under in October 2010.

Prosecutor Peter Grieves-Smith said Crown offered customers fiercely competitive offers on foreign currency, but ran into serious financial problems when their market speculating came up woefully short. It meant Crown was having to use new clients' investments to settle existing debts.

The court heard the ailing firm was still accepting payment from customers, even when some staff knew the firm was insolvent - with little chance of clients getting their money back.