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Britain’s fraud squad given ‘unexplained wealth’ order

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has been granted its first unexplained-wealth order (UWO) to seize a £1.5 million property in that country’s Lake District.

The property is owned by Claire Schools, ex-wife of convicted solicitor Timothy Schools, the England and Wales Gazette reports.

Timothy Schools was sentenced to 14 years in 2022 for his role in a fraudulent scheme that caused investors to lose around £100 million.

The property is believed to have been purchased with the proceeds of his crime.

The SFO secured a court order to freeze the property, ensuring any future sale proceeds are preserved.

28 days to explain

Claire Schools has been given 28 days to provide details about how the property was acquired.

The SFO can later use this information to potentially seize the property.

This is the first use of a UWO by the SFO since the law was introduced in 2018.

In a related case, Schools was also ordered to pay back over £1 million in criminal assets or face an additional five years in prison.

Schools was involved in a fraud with business partner David Kennedy, where they promised investors high returns from loans to British law firms pursuing no-win, no-fee cases.

The Axiom Legal Financing Fund, set up to lend money to firms, collapsed in 2012, affecting thousands of clients.