Convicted fraudster Edward Davenport - D.O.B. 11/7/1966, of Portland Place, London has been hit with a £13.9 million confiscation and compensation order following a hearing at Southwark Crown Court yesterday.

In October 2011, Davenport was convicted of conspiracy to defraud, along with eight others. This was in response to his role within a £4 million commercial loans advance fee fraud operating as Gresham Ltd- a company promoted falsely as a long established financial organisation capable of lending hundreds of millions of pounds as venture capital.

Davenport, the self-confessed “most flamboyant and best-known entrepreneur” in London, was first jailed for seven years and eight months following his conviction in 2011, but was released in May of this year.

Yesterday, Judge Testar imposed Davenport to pay a £12 million confiscation order, alongside prosecution costs totalling £753,949.50, recovery of defence costs of £1,157,704.67 and a compensation order (to be paid in addition to the confiscation order) to the extent of £1,943,620.56.

Davenport has been given six months to pay the orders and he will face a 10 year prison sentence, if he fails to pay up.

Commenting on the case, Judge Tester said: “The important thing is that in this case nothing has been cut and dried. Edward Davenport has only agreed matters in these criminal proceedings at a late stage. For some four years I have had a deep sense that moving matters along in the case has been a truly Sisyphean task, both before during and after the trial…

“Through his dishonesty Mr Davenport has caused harm to many people and it would be an insensitive judge who was not conscious of those whom he has defrauded…

“In the end I have decided that the risk of Mr Davenport retaining some of the fruits of his crime is one that my public duty dictates I should not take.”

From an earlier hearing, he was handed down a Serious Crime Prevention Order. Davenport has also been disqualified from being a company director for ten years.