The arrest of two of the three brothers who headed up the Marrache & Co law firm here has sent shudders through the financial services and legal sectors. The Financial Services Commission has withdrawn licences it had issued to Marrache, prompting the seizure of clients’ investment funds.

Whether lawyers at what was considered one of the best firms on the Rock had any inkling of what was afoot remains to be discovered. Last week, Benjamin and Solomon Marrache, the two brothers facing multi-million pound fraud charges, were refused bail and remanded in prison by the Magistrates Court.

Stipendiary Magistrate Charles Pitto said there was a high risk of the two men fleeing Gibraltar as the police probe into the affairs of Marrache & Co intensified. Attorney General Ricky Rhoda, QC, said the scale of the alleged fraud appeared to be larger than investigators first thought. If convicted, the brothers could spend up to 10 years in jail. Supposedly if more wrong doing is discovered, their future lives behind bars may be extended.