Three men have been handed a total of 19 years in jail for boiler room fraud after an investigation by the Financial Services Authority, City of London Police and Eurojust.

Tomas Wilmot and his sons Kevin and Christopher controlled a syndicate of boiler rooms that defrauded an estimated 1,700 investors of £27.5 million ($45.3 million).

Boiler room fraud involves aggressively selling shares, often by cold-calling investors, that cannot be sold on, for significantly more than they are worth.

The boiler rooms were based predominantly in Spain but the back office, accounts and companies used in the operation were from Malta, Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania, Austria, Andorra, Brazil, Belize, Dubai and a number of Caribbean islands.

The investigation was the first time the FSA had secured the support of Eurojust, which co-ordinates investigations across EU member states.