Twin brothers who ran a £2.5m property scam have been disqualified from being directors for a total of 22 years following an investigation by the Insolvency Service (IS).

Paul and Keith Aspden, from Lancashire, were joint directors of Independent Property Consultants Limited (IPC), a company that marketed property developments in Bulgaria and Cape Verde.

An IS investigation found that members of the public had paid over £1.5m to IPC for properties in four Bulgarian developments and a further £1m for apartments in Cape Verde, but that none of the properties had materialised.

In addition, IPC failed to ringfence some £650,000 of client funds which investigators have been unable to locate.

Ken Beasley, official receiver at the IS public interest unit, said: 'The Aspden brothers were responsible for significant financial losses suffered by members of the public who never received the foreign properties they paid for. The company misled its customers into making payments for foreign properties and then the directors recklessly failed to protect this money.'

The brothers are each disqualified from acting as a director for 11 years, starting on 4 April 2013.