A woman who raked in a £1.6million fortune selling fake diet drops and bogus cancer treatments has been banned from running a company for six years.
Carol Wiseman, 51, who along with her sister Helen Buchan, 52, claimed their Secret Diet Drops suppressed appetite, has been rapped after a separate property firm she ran went bust owing thousands.
The Insolvency Service launched a probe into Wiseman’s company Jacamar Properties after it went into liquidation last year.
They discovered Wiseman had not filed proper accounting records and failed to pay more than £88,000 in tax. The probe also revealed almost £300,000 had been removed from the company’s bank account and was unaccounted for.
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Wiseman has now been disqualified from acting as a company director until 2025.
The sisters, both from Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, set up Secret Diet Drops Ltd, in 2011. Each made six-figure sums in the first two years of trading.
Warnings were issued by Trading Standards officials about the products but the pair failed to stop selling them and made only minor alterations to the advertising claims posted online.
An investigation was launched, leading to them appearing at Peterhead Sheriff Court in March 2016 and admitting two charges under consumer protection laws.
They were given 180 hours unpaid work in the community as an alternative to jail while the firm were fined £9000.
Prosecutors launched a proceeds of crime investigation and they were ordered to hand over a total of £826,821 in November.
