Fake tea tycoon facing proceeds of crime action

Fraudster swindled luxury hotels with bogus brew

- RUTH SUTER

A Scottish ‘Del Boy’ fraudster who swindled luxury hotels into buying £500,000 of fake tea is facing fresh legal action to pay back his ill-gotten gains.

Thomas Robinson (55) was jailed for more than three years in June for his plot in duping businesses across the UK into buying his Scottishgrown tea. He claimed to grow the leaves at a plantation, named The Wee Tea Plantation, on farmland in Amulree, Perthshire.

But the crook, from Dunkeld, planted tea plants for show, then imported more than a ton of tea from overseas and repacked it. In reality, Robinson bought the tea from wholesalers in Italy for EUR3 before reselling them to retailers for five times the original cost.