OTHER investors have lost their money when investment companies collapsed. Here are some of the most prominent cases from over the years.

. Mark Synnott

This 49 year old investment adviser was sentenced to four years in prison earlier this year for fraudulent trading. Synnott's brokerage firm collapsed in 1991 and investors who gave £2.3 million to him have yet to get their money back.

More than 100 investors most of them elderly gave Synnott their savings for pensions in their retirement. A thalidomide victim handed over his £70,000 compensation payment.

The fraudulent trading charge, involved Synnott pretending that, as a director of Mark Synnott Brokers Ltd, he was engaged in bone fide investments when he knew the company was insolvent.

Synnott was also found guilty of converting sums of £40,000 of the company's money for his own use. The reality was that the company was insolvent for over 10 years before it collapsed.

. Patrick Blanchfield

Patrick Blanchfield was the principal of the company Abbey Financial Services in Kilkenny and acted as agent for several financial institutions, including New Ireland Assurance. He absconded with over £1 million of his investors money in late 1994. Some of this money was owned by members of Blanchfield's family.

Attention first began to focus on Blanchfield when he appeared in court on forgery charges, after he forged a Hibernian Life Insurance cheque.

The majority of Blanchfield's clients invested sums of £500 to £5,000 and were by the interest rate of 5 per cent above the going rate offered by the qualified auctioneer. He also promised to arrange financing and mortgages for people on the back of deposits.

Clients assumed their money was being invested with the institutions Blanchfield claimed to represent; it was later revealed that this was not always the case. Blanchfield fled to Britain soon after the company collapsed.

. Finbarr Ross

Finbarr Ross was a Cork financier who absconded leaving £7 million of clients money unaccounted for in 1984. Ross controlled the Gibraltar based investment company International Investments Ltd (IIL). He was able to entice brokers in Northern Ireland to recommend his company as an investment opportunity to their clients by giving them cash bonuses and expensive gifts.

As early as December 1983 Ross knew that IIL had a cash flow problem of around £5 million but after an apparently convincing presentation to investors, a further £1 million was invested by Ross's clients. Six months later Ross had absconded to the US, when it was discovered that much of the investors monies had been invested in property he owned.

It is understood that Ross is now working as a minister with the New Age Metaphysical Church in Talequah in the southern US. The RUC are said to be interested in extraditing the former financier.

. Russel Murphy

Charles Russel Murphy was a chartered accountant and partner in the firm of Henry M Murphy and Co. He personally took large sums of money from prominent personalities like Gay Byrne and Hugh Leonard for investment. It was later revealed that Murphy had spent large sums of this money to support his lavish lifestyle.

Investors were continually assured by the accountant that money was properly invested and showing a solid profit. Mr Russel was at one time a director of Bank of Ireland and used this position to borrow money using Gay Byrne's name.