Two businessmen who duped people into investing in a worthless wine business have each been disqualified from acting as company directors for 12 years following an investigation by the Insolvency Service (IS).

Investigators found that Bradleigh Caley, a director of Fine Wine Vintners Ltd, and John Evans, who was not a registered director of the company, had both caused the company to trade in a manner that lacked commercial probity.

Over a period of 14 months, beginning in August 2009, Caley and Evans encouraged members of the public to invest £1.5m with Fine Wine Vinters, on the understanding that this money would be used to purchase wine.

In reality, only £446,756 was used to buy wine. Of the rest, over £500,000 was paid to Caley, Evans and their friends, families and associates. The remainder was spent on properties and visits to restaurants, gentlemen's clubs and bars.

The High Court heard that while Fine Wine Vinters claimed to be a leading fine wine broker with a Mayfair address, its employees actually worked out of a 'boiler room' in Bromley, Kent. The brokers made hard selling phone calls, using a script, and adopted pseudonyms to hide their true identities.

Investors were persuaded to purchase fine wines at grossly inflated prices, which made the prospect of gaining a meaningful return non-existent. While Fine Wine Vinters claimed in its brochure to have a network of contacts throughout the UK and Europe and be able to arrange the re-sale of wines at a moment's notice, in fact its only 'contacts' were those of wine merchants and wholesalers whose details were readily available to the general public.

David Brooks, a chief examiner for the IS said: 'Where investors are told that their funds will be used for a certain purpose the directors ought to ensure that the company does what it says it will do. The fact that clients' trust was broken and their money lost with limited wine purchased for them makes this case all the more serious.'