'Royal' conman jailed for €10m fraud

A man who posed as a member of the Saudi Arabian royal family to defraud four investors out of almost €10m has been jailed for eight years in the US.

New Jersey Judge William Walls also ordered Farah, 37, to repay his victims at the initial rate of €39 a month, when he gets out of prison.

The victims have sued and so far recovered about $1.5m (€1.2m) from Farah, a department store assistant, Assistant US Attorney Michele Brown said.

The four investors – one from Dallas, two from Austria, and one from Britain – had given Farah €14.4m after he told them he was a Saudi royal with access to high-yield investments not widely available, prosecutors said.

Some of the money was returned to investors as evidence of profit.

Farah, who lived in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, has claimed he was educated at Harvard, when he was actually a Palestinian born in Israel who became a US citizen, had no blue blood, and never had any formal business training or university degrees, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors asked for a reduced sentence because Farah tipped them to a ring that was forging US dollars and helped crack the operation by working undercover, Assistant US Attorney Michele Brown said.