Scammers travelled from London to hit N. Wales hotels
GANG RAN REFUNDS RACKET IN LATE-NIGHT VISITS
ASCAMMER travelled with other fraudsters from London to defraud country house hotels in North Wales.
Abdullahi Jamma, 25, of Common Lane, London, was jailed for 18 months after admitting conspiring to commit fraud.
Four months of a suspended sentence was also activated, to run consecutively.
Judge Timothy Petts at Caernarfon Crown Court said in March last year a group of four people visited hotels, hoping to catch night staff off their guard. They tried to take £18,000 using card machines to process refunds.
But staff became suspicious and police were called in.
Two members of the gang – Kasin Awil, 21, and Abdullahi Hussein, 25 – admitted at an earlier hearing to conspiring to dishonestly make a false representation to make a gain.
They were jailed for 15 and 18 months, respectively.
Prosecutor Laura Knightly said in the early hours, the gang had gone to Bodysgallen Hall Hotel in Llandudno. They were targeting country house hotels to commit fraud by using the establishments’ PDQ card-reading machines to refund cash into their accounts.
They then went to Tre-Ysgawen Hall on Anglesey where a card machine was picked up by one of the group and refunds made.
The lawyer said at 3am police saw a hired Mercedes with Jamma inside. Its black box showed the car had stopped at the hotels.
Justin Hugheston-Roberts, defending, said two other defendants had been jailed and Jamma understood there could be no difference in his case.
He was anxious to start afresh. But Judge Petts described the plot as a “sophisticated attempt” to defraud the hotels.