Decade-long investigation sees worldwide fraudster jailed

Essex Police detectives who have been investigating a worldwide fraud for a decade saw a man jailed for stealing more than £400,000 from his victims.

Richard Lester, 56, of Swifts Green Road in Luton, was sentenced to a total of five years in prison at Chelmsford Crown Court on Tuesday 11 February 2025.

He was previously found guilty of fraudulent trading and concealing criminal property at the same court in December 2024.

We were first made aware of Lester in 2013, whilst he lived in Essex, when we first received reports about a suspicious business selling ‘cruise miles’ – vouchers that supposedly entitled customers to cruises at discounted rates.

More than 180 victims were identified over the months and years our investigation developed, with victims found in the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, Germany and Japan.

Lester ran a website which sold the ‘miles’ and listed the cruises victims could choose from. As the scam ran on Lester repeatedly increased the number of miles needed to book the cruises, but for the vast majority of victims no cruise was booked by his company.

Some only discovered this when they turned up at ports for holidays and were turned away by the cruise operators.

PC Leanne Smith, who has been investigating Lester’s company since 2014, said:

“While it is important justice has been served and Lester has reached sentencing, the impact on his victims is much greater and for some is ongoing to this day.
“The financial cost for victims was into the thousands of pounds, which Lester frittered away to support his own lifestyle.
“Despite the years of work by the force and the mounting number of people coming forward to accuse him, he refused to accept his guilt.
“That decision left him facing the strength of the case we made in court, and the jury were left with no doubt he was guilty.
“Despite Lester’s efforts to cover his tracks we showed he was using multiple bank accounts to move his victim’s money, but it all ultimately remained in his control.
“This has been a large and complex investigation, with officers gathering dozens of statements from victims.
“I’d like to thank Detective Simon Gray, who has since joined City of London Police, and our barristers Andrew Evans and Sophia Kerridge, for their commitment to this case.”

In 2009 Lester set up Cruisevoucher – a scheme where customers would buy vouchers for cruises up to three years in advance, and the money they spent was used to pay for earlier customers’ cruises who had brought vouchers the same way.

Lester’s business offered customers the opportunity to take these cruises at heavily discounted rates.

He met future victims and recruited some as agents for his business on these cruises.

In 2011 he changed his business model and renamed the company ‘Cruisemiles’. After this point Lester quickly stopped booking the cruises his customers believed they would be taking and keeping their money for himself.

Much like airmiles, customers could now buy miles to be exchanged for cruises.

However, many found the number of miles required to book these cruises regularly and rapidly increased.

Over three years he stole £402,540.29 from 184 people.

His agents, who had themselves bought thousands of pounds of miles, would earn a commission by selling more miles to customers, but were just as trapped in Lester’s web with no way to reclaim the money they had lost.

Over this time disgruntled victims began to report the scam, and in July 2013 the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau contacted Essex Police and we began our investigation.

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