Jonathon McCrae was a sincere and loyal man who could be trusted with anything.

So when Ritchie Brown celebrated the biggest day of his life, he knew it was McCrae, his oldest school friend, that he wanted as best man.

But little did he know, as he said his vows, that the man standing by his side was plotting a scheme to steal thousands of pounds from his friends and flee to Switzerland.

Conman McCrae admitted persuading Brown and other friends to put a combined total of £421,772 into his phoney enterprise, which he used to fund a lavish lifestyle.

It was early 2002, around the same time of Mr Brown’s wedding, when McCrae first bragged to another long-time friend, Steven Bennett, about his success in spread-betting on the US stock markets.

He told them about a group called the Sandyway Spread investment Group (SSIG), named after the road in which he lived with his wife, Angela, in Westhoughton.

It was McCrae’s job to collect money from members and invest it on their behalf, on the internet, in stock markets.

He regaled Mr Bennett and his partner, Karen, with stories of his extraordinary success, boasting about the financial possibilities of the enterprise and persuading them to join the SSIG.

Tempted by the huge sums of money they believed they could make, the couple invested thousands of pounds in the group and started spreading the word to others.

By 2004, several friends of the Bennetts had invested, including Ritchie Brown, Mr Bennett’s father, Ralph, and father-in-law Peter Woodall.

McCrae said all deposits had to be sent to an RBS account, which was assumed by members to be for the SSIG, but was in fact McCrae’s personal bank account. Later he created a dedicated SSIG fund and members made staged payments to this account to increase their individual holding in the enterprise.

He kept in contact with them on a weekly basis, mostly by email, telling them how well they were performing.

He even produced a fake newsletter, which reflected the performance of the SSIG, along with statements showing some members’ stakes had almost quadrupled over time.

A genuine statement from October, 2004, showed the account had £37 in it, yet in June, 2005, McCrae sent a statement to pals, claiming the account had more than £2 million in it. That was a lie.

The Bennetts invested a total of £97,685 over the course of the SSIG’s existence which, according to fake statements, had increased to £447,490 by August, 2005.

Excited by their newfound wealth, they decided to buy a villa in Paphos, Cyprus, and asked McCrae if they could withdraw money for the deposit from their stake in the SSIG fund.

But the money did not exist. While his life-long friends were planning the rest of their lives, McCrae was plotting his escape.

He transferred their money from the SSIG account into his personal bank accounts to cover his overdrafts — a result of his luxury lifestyle which saw him buy a villa in Carob Village, Paphos.

Meanwhile, the Bennetts borrowed money from family members and on credit cards, assured by their good friend that there was a problem with the bank.

At the same time Ralph Bennett and his wife decided to use their success to buy a caravan to enjoy in retirement and asked for a withdrawal from the SSIG.

McCrae sent cheques to Mr Bennett, but these bounced and the conman again blamed the bank.

By early 2005, more of McCrae’s friends had become victim to his devious plan.

A neighbour, Christopher Kirton, invested thousands of pounds after his wife’s parents died in the Thailand tsunami. The couple moved to Cyprus and Mr Kirton spent more cash on a new trading software system invented by McCrae, which also turned out to be a fraud.

When Ritchie Brown and others started to suspect something was wrong, McCrae sent reassuring emails to persuade his friends they would get their money.

Again, they did not get their cash and on August 5, 2005, Stephen Bennett received an email from McCrae saying he had let everybody down and that he knew he was going to jail.

Facing debts of more than £90,000, he declared himself bankrupt and fled to Switzerland — but his scheming did not stop there.

He started work with Nestle and met Mark Wright, who became a good friend.

McCrae persuaded Mr Wright, who was saving to buy a house in Switzerland, to invest in a scheme exploiting fluctuations in international exchange rates using a computer programme he had created.

Believing he was making a huge profit, Mr Wright bought an Audi car and started to design his dream home.

By June, 2008, he had invested his life savings and hoped to visit England regularly to see his child, who was undergoing heart surgery. Despite pursuing McCrae, who lost his Nestle job in February last year and had disappeared off the map, Mr Wright never saw any of his money again.

McCrae’s scheme started to unravel as his investors grew suspicious by the lack of return on their investments.

He was arrested at Liverpool airport coming back from Geneva on November 19, 2009, on suspicion of theft and false accounting.

He admitted what he had done to police, but offered no explanation for the deception and dishonesty towards some of his closest friends.

Between August, 2002, and July, 2004, McCrae invested £92,990 with CMC, a genuine spread-betting company, but withdrew £87,292, losing the rest.

Police do not know exactly how McCrae spent the money, but say some of the cash paid for his daughter’s private education while the family enjoyed expensive holidays and flash restaurants.

He invested with Peregrine Financial Group from March, 2004, to July, 2005, depositing 222,925 US dollars and withdrawing 156,070 US dollars.

Of the £421,772 invested by McCrae, only £51,995 was ever repaid.

Jack Buchsbaum, director at Wilds Accountancy, said: “Spread-betting is a glorified form of gambling and you have got to be careful and know what you are doing.

“There can be a rapid swing over a short period of time on the markets and spread-betting is about gambling on short term movements. It is very risky.

“If you don’t know what you are doing or are leaving it to someone else, it really must be very small amounts and with someone who is registered with the relevant authorities.

“What happened is very sad case but, as I always say, don’t mix business with pleasure.”