By Edward Trotter-
Six fraudsters have been jailed after defrauding the public out of more than £37m in one of the biggest investigations operated by the National Trading Standards Crime Team.
In one of the largest UK online crime cases, the criminal group set up and operated a number of copycat websites impersonating official government services to sell passports, driving licences, and other key documents for hugely inflated prices.
Their criminal endeavours were undetected for a number of years before their luck ran out.
The convictions follow two trials; the first in July 2017, and the other which concluded this week. Six individuals, Peter Hall, Claire Hall, Syed Bilal Zaidi, Collette Ferrow, Liam Hincks and Kerry Mill, all of various addresses across the UK.
The trial last July heard how the defendants set up copycat websites through the company Tadservices limited between January 2011 and November 2014. The sites mimicked official websites run by 11 government agencies and departments, and also manipulated search engine results to appear more genuine.
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The criminals also set up websites that mimicked the American, Cambodian, Sri Lankan, Turkish and Vietnamese official visa sites where travellers could apply and pay for electronic visas. It is believed that in addition to UK consumers, Indian, Turkish and US citizens were also defrauded.
The defendants enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, purchasing expensive cars and luxury holidays at the expense of others.
The court heard how hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting purchasers were duped into paying more than necessary for new or replacement passports, visas, birth and death certificates, driving licences, driving tests, car tax discs and the London congestion charge.
Like many criminals today and in the past, these bunch of crooks clearly thought their actions would go unnoticed. Lord Harris, chair of National Trading Standards said:
These convictions represent an important milestone in the fight against online fraud.” “This was a huge fraud and a very large number of people lost money as a result of the malicious actions of these criminals.”
Passing sentence on Tuesday, Judge Sean Morris said: “The internet is now the most frequently used marketplace. It is full of busy people in a rush who don’t have time. There is a lot of money to be made by dishonest people out of the honest people who don’t have time to check that a site is an official government service.”
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