A Blackheath man who used ChatGPT to forge documents for a fake £154 million takeover bid has been given a two-year suspended sentence.
Christopher Woolcott, 44, used fake identities and forged documents while pretending to mount a takeover at Touchstone Exploration, a Canadian-based company which is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
He turned to ChatGPT for help drawing up the bogus paperwork before printing the documents and posting them from a branch of Ryman stationers in Blackheath.
Woolcott had bought shares in Touchstone before launching the fraud, and stood to make around £70,000 if news of the takeover was announced or leaked online.
The fake documents purported to come from a law firm, a bank and a private equity firm, with Woolcott downloading company logos from Google. But they were littered with obvious mistakes, and Touchstone executives were suspicious of the “too good to be true” takeover bid, Southwark Crown Court heard.
Woolcott went as far as to meet Touchstone chief executive Paul Baay at the May Fair Hotel in London, putting on an American accent while posing as a representative for the supposed takeover bidders.
He leaked news of a supposed takeover on social media platform Discord in a bid to boost the company’s share price.
Woolcott pleaded guilty to fraud and three counts of making a false instrument, and on Tuesday was sentenced by Judge Usha Karu to two years in prison, suspended for two years.
The judge said Woolcott, a father-of-two, had concocted a “deliberate and sustained scheme” to “hoodwink” Touchstone.
“You knew full well what you were doing,” she said, and noted that when assessed by medical professionals before sentencing Woolcott admitted he had “found it exciting to pretend to be a different character”.
Woolcott was ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service and must pay £4,627 in prosecution costs.
His barrister Mark Stevens pointed out that Touchstone quickly realised the takeover documents were “surprisingly amateurish”, and it was easy to spot that the aliases being used were fakes.
He said Woolcott had “difficulties with HMRC dating back several years, and instead of seeking the assistance of friends and family he buried his head somewhat in the sand”.
“He decided to recoup losses made through Touchstone shares by entering into this foolish enterprise.”
Prosecutor Denis Barry said Woolcott admitted a “dishonest attempt to manipulate the share price of Touchstone Exploration Inc” when he was questioned by Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) investigators in February.
He said: “Mr Woolcott staged a fake takeover offer for the company, impersonating the buyers and their professional advisers, and submitted forged documents in an attempt to artificially increase the value of his existing shareholding.”
The court heard that Woolcott bought Touchstone shares in his name, as well as the names of his wife and son, with a total value of just under £70,000 between May and November 2024. If his scheme had been successful, the value of the shares would have been likely to double.
Woolcott, who worked for a construction firm, posed as “Simon Jones”, from private equity firm Griffon Partners, in his initial contact with Touchstone, using an AOL email address and claiming his business account was temporarily down due to a malware attack.
Using that email address and a phone he had bought from a shop near his workplace, Woolcott joined a Touchstone community group on Discord where he planned to leak news of a proposed takeover.
It is the latest fraud case to come before a London court, after a Whitechapel man was convicted of fraud after taking around £350,000 from eight employers.
