A 56-year-old Shropshire man who was an “important cog” in a Europe-wide multi-million pound investment fraud has been jailed for two years.

But former second-hand car dealer Thiery Doutrepont, of Little Wenlock, was due to be freed almost immediately having spent more than a year in custody while on remand.

Doutrepont had been involved with Benchmark Asset Managers, a hedge fund scam set up by Marc Duchesne in 2005 during which dozens of investors lost an estimated £15 million in just over a year, the court had heard.

Doutrepont, of Huntington, had admitted three charges of recklessly making promises and statements which led to a trio of investors losing about £600,000.

He had 10 similar offences taken into consideration involving wealthy investors from across Europe who together lost more than five million euros – two of whom had each lost almost one-and-a-half million euros.

Duchesne, 47, admitted one count of conspiracy to defraud between October 1, 2004, and July 11, 2006 and asked for a further offence of obtaining a £50,000 money transfer by deception to be taken into consideration.

He was jailed for four and a half years and banned from being a company director for 10 years.

Southwark Crown Court heard yesterday that Duchesne – described as a professional conman and fraudster – had created an image of being an extremely successful financial businessman.

Duchesne, of East Finchley, north London, was living in a penthouse at Canary Wharf, driving a Ferrari Enzo, using a private jet, spending thousands of pounds each month at Harrods and being chauffeur-driven in a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Judge Michael Gledhill said Belgium-born Doutrepont had been driven by greed and had wanted to “make easy money for nothing”. Doutrepont went to police with his wife Rachel and had claimed to have been a victim, but police saw it as a double bluff and he was arrested.

Mr Stephen Winberg, prosecuting, claimed Doutrepont had been Duchesne’s right hand man and that the fraud had been helped by the secretive nature of hedge funds.