‘Larger than life’ Lois Bhagwan was labelled a serious criminal by the fraud squad detective whose officers brought her to justice.

Det Insp Duncan Wynn said it was ‘fair’ to describe the Fijian-born fraudster as a Walter Mitty-style character, labelling her appearances in Milton-under-Wychwood dressed in a flak jacket and toting war stories as ‘fantasy’.

Police first began looking into the Lionheart Project in 2012, when a victim came forward to express concerns about their investment in the scheme.

Mr Wynn, of Thames Valley Police’s economic crime unit, told the Oxford Mail: “It seems like a long time ago but for most of that time Lois Bhagwan was out of the country and difficult to find. For most of that investigation it's been a case of trying to track her movements and bring her back to the UK for justice, which we achieved last year.”

The case was by no means the largest the regional fraud unit has dealt with, but the emotional cost was incalculable.

He said: “The overwhelming basis of this case is not so much the financial loss but the emotional loss.

“These were people who were completely tricked and coerced by Lois Bhagwan to invest and these were people who were taken in and genuinely believed Lois Bhagwan to be a friend, trusted her, emotionally invested in her.

“Not only the financial loss, they also suffered the emotional loss realising the person they'd believed to be a genuine friend doing genuine good had stolen their money and used it for their own benefit to fund their lifestyle.”

He added: “She may have believed she was doing good, but there's no evidence of that.

“Most importantly, there was no way the use to which she put the victims' money could have earned them any of the investment back let alone any potential interest on that, which is how she sold it to the victims.

“I think Lois Bhagwan had great ideas, had great passion for certain things but I think those beliefs never had any founding.

“She ran with ideas without thinking them through, she ignored advice from people when it was given and she just went ahead and continued on these journeys.

“There's stories of her turning up in Milton under Wychwood, a small Oxfordshire village, wearing a flak jacket and recounting she'd just come back from peacekeeping talks. It's fantasy and fanciful.

“Unfortunately, because she's a larger than life character and very believable victims invested in it, genuinely wanted to do good for the world themselves through Lois Bhagwan. Unfortunately, that trust was misplaced.”

He hoped her conviction would bring closure to the fraudster’s victims: “I think it shows Lois Bhagwan was a serious criminal and that these offences warranted an appearance at Oxford Crown Court and subsequent conviction.”