Three people have been banned from acting as trustees of pensions schemes over suspicions they misled investors out of £9m between November 2012 and May 2013.
Timothy Walker, Desmond Cheyne and Lindsay Macalister, have all been added to The Pensions Regulator's (TPR) register of prohibited trustees due to their links to the Milton and Carrick Harbour schemes.
TPR believes the former trustees invested funds held by the pension schemes in high-risk unregulated investments in the UK and overseas without the members' knowledge.
"The trustees showed a disregard for their obligations resulting in scheme assets being gambled on high-risk investments," TPR director of case management, Mike Birch, said.
"They are now worth a tiny fraction of what was put into them. This has jeopardised the financial futures of the scheme members they were supposed to be supporting."
Independent pension professionals alerted TPR to their concerns about the actions of the trustees, reporting suspicious transfers, and those involved having conflicts of interest.
Among the investments were land and failed hotel developments in Scotland, acquired at grossly over-inflated prices.
The Determinations Panel ruled that Walker and Lindsay should be prohibited on the grounds that their lack of integrity, competence and capability means they are not fit and proper people to act as trustees of a pension scheme.
While it was decided that Cheyne, who did not contest his prohibition, should be banned on the grounds of his lack of competence and capability.
The case concerns two sets of occupational pension schemes, six, which together are referred to in the determination notice as the Milton Schemes, and one as the separate Carrick Harbour Scheme.
Dalriada was appointed as an independent trustee to the schemes in 2013 and is working to recover as much of the invested money as possible for the members.
"Savers have the right to expect trustees to manage their pension schemes effectively," Brich said.
"Where trustees cannot or do not do this, we will take action to protect members' benefits by replacing them and then, where appropriate, ensuring that they can no longer act as trustees."
