Convicted conman Mohammed Tanveer has been hit with the heaviest sentence after he and seven others were sentenced for money laundering offences.
The gang targeted elderly and vulnerable individuals, offering them the opportunity to invest in corporate bonds that were supposedly only available to private investors.
The victims were persuaded to invest large sums of money and promised returns of between 8-10%.
Nearly £3m ($3.8m, €3.4m) was stolen, with one person losing their life savings of nearly £1m.
Tanveer was sentenced to seven years in prison for money laundering offences after having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud at an earlier trial.
A network of launderers
But he did not act alone.
Lucy Richardson, Mark Bowman and Mandy Cross were also convicted of money laundering offences related to the same scam, on the same day.
Barry Spearing was convicted of money laundering at an earlier trial, while Shaun Cross, Ryan Weston and Philip Hunt had previously pleaded guilty to the same offences.
Custodial sentences were handed to:
- Tanveer – seven years;
- Spearing – six years;
- Shaun Cross – four years and eight months;
- Weston – three and a half years.
Suspended sentences were handed to:
- Richardson – two years;
- Bowman – 15 months;
- Mandy Cross – one year;
- Hunt – 20 months.
The fraudsters used fake marketing brochures and company reports to make the scam look legitimate.
They also claimed to be investing in companies such as Thames Water, BT and Rolls Royce and provided fake dividend payments to their victims to encourage further investments.
Double slap
If they kept investing, the victims would receive further dividends; but when they wanted out, payments stopped and the fraudsters became unavailable.
Adding insult to injury, once the victims decided to get out of the scheme, the scammers would demand more money to help them with a bogus exit strategy.
The gang managed to defraud people by using companies called Asset and Investments, Abel & Cole Finance, Brookes and Bauer, and Peterson Jacobs.
“This was a particularly callous scam operation, where vulnerable victims lost their entire life savings on investments that simply didn’t exist,” said Alistair Dickson, senior specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service.
“Common to each of the frauds was the fact that the individuals targeted were often elderly and vulnerable. Persuaded by the friendly nature of those who contacted them and the lengths to which these criminals had gone to make it all seem genuine, they trusted what they were being told.
“The reality is that the gang conned their way to nearly £3m.”
