Directors are guilty of pounds 2m wine theft

TWO FORMER directors of a leading wine merchant were yesterday found guilty of stealing pounds 2m worth of vintage stock from clients.

Raymond Burraway, 52, and Joseph Mankowitz, 49, secretly sold thousands of cases of fine wines, port and champagne which had been stored in bonded warehouses and at the London headquarters of their company, Green's.

The pair, convicted of conspiracy to steal, then engineered a bogus sell-off of the storage side of their business to cover their tracks.

Inner London Crown Court was told that their clients included the aristocracy and the legal profession and millionaire businessmen.

Burraway and Mankowitz bought Green's in early 1990 and within months began plundering the huge stocks. Timothy Soames, 52, who admitted the conspiracy charge, helped by finding buyers for many of the 6,800 stolen crates.

Burraway, of Wandsworth, south-west London, and Mankowitz, of Earls Court, west London, will be sentenced on 10 March, along with Soames, of Notting Hill, west London. A fourth man, Anthony Boylan, 58, of Dulwich, south-east London, was acquitted of taking part in the conspiracy.