A FRAUDSTER has been ordered to pay back more than £1m after being ‘doggedly pursued’ by financial investigators for the past ten-years.

Paul Blanchard, 73, of St Oswald’s Court, Fulford, York, was involved in a multi-million pound fraud spanning the UK, Spain, Gibraltar and Tenerife.

He was sentenced in February 2008 to six and a half years’ prison for crimes including possessing criminal property, obtaining a money transfer by deception and conspiracy to conceal, disguise, convert or transfer criminal property.

A complex and lengthy financial investigation was carried out by the North East Regional Asset Recovery Team into Blanchard’s affairs and on Monday he appeared before Teesside Crown Court where he was made subject to a Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation order totalling £1,026,887.45.

This will be be settled from the sale of properties in York and Essex, together with a high-value personalised registration number.

Should Blanchard not satisfy the confiscation order within three months, he will be returned to prison for a further five years.

Serving that sentence will not extinguish the confiscation order.

In addition to the confiscation order, the court made compensation orders totalling £793,438.81 in respect of the victims of Blanchard’s criminality.

Detective Inspector Jon Hodgeon, head of North Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit, said: “This judgement is the result of many years of hard work and demonstrates that you simply cannot hide your assets and we will hold you to account.”