A former laundromat owner turned Ponzi scheme operator has been sentenced to 14 years behind bars after swindling millions of dollars from would-be investors and friends.

Chris Marco was found guilty of 43 fraud charges after illegally accepting more than $34 million from six client-victims to whom he promised healthy returns from investment schemes that did not exist.

The 67-year-old was sentenced in Western Australia's Supreme Court on Thursday to 14 years' imprisonment, eligible for parole after 12 years.

All up, Marco accepted $253 million from investors, repaying almost $200 million of it, over an almost eight-year period to 2018, before the corporate watchdog caught up with him and he declared bankruptcy.

He invested less than five per cent of the funds and made no profit despite

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