The director of UK CBD brand Virtutum Limited, which traded as CBD Asylum in Hull, has been given a suspended prison sentence for fraud and money laundering.
Alex Hope, 41, and his co-director Liam Jones, 42, both pleaded guilty to fraud at Hull Crown Court in June 2026. Hope was separately convicted of money laundering, having channelled the proceeds of two fraudulent loans through a string of bank accounts to help buy a property in the Canary Islands.
Hope was a director of Virtutum when the company secured a £56,000 loan from a private lender in 2021. He had earlier, as sole director of the management consultancy A Hope Ltd, fraudulently obtained a £25,000 government-backed Bounce Back Loan in August 2020, declaring a turnover of £100,000 when the company’s accounts showed less than £13,000.
Funds from both loans were laundered through a number of accounts before forming part of a €245,825 payment for a two-storey, semi-detached house in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote, bought in the names of Hope and his wife, according to the Insolvency Service.
READ MORE…
Jones was convicted of one count of fraud over the £56,000 loan. In signing the agreement, both men gave personal guarantees that no litigation was taking place against them, when, the Insolvency Service said, a specialist litigation firm had in fact been pursuing them for around £800,000 since 2019.
Hope was convicted of two counts of fraud, one of money laundering, and one of failing to disclose the value of company shares while bankrupt. He received a three-year prison sentence, suspended for three years, an eight-year disqualification as a company director, and 250 hours of unpaid work. Jones was given a 10-month sentence suspended for 18 months, a two-year directorship ban and 100 hours of unpaid work.
‘Alex Hope deliberately lied about his company’s turnover to secure a Covid loan meant to help businesses survive the pandemic,’ said Mark Stephens, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service. ‘He then laundered the proceeds of both fraudulent loans through a string of bank accounts, using the money to help buy a property abroad.’
Virtutum was incorporated in 2017, during the rapid and lightly regulated expansion of the UK CBD market, and built CBD Asylum into a Hull-based retailer of CBD isolate products. More than 80 CBD Asylum products, spanning oils, drops, capsules and sweets, had reached ‘validated’ status on the Food Standards Agency’s public register of CBD novel foods, allowing them to remain on sale pending safety assessment, all filed under a single application tied to the US isolate supplier Mile High Labs.
Both directors were declared bankrupt in March 2022. The Insolvency Service said it is seeking to recover the fraudulently obtained funds under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
