£150k bank imposters
Ex-military fraud gang impersonate well-off Lloyds customers, turn up at branches... then steal funds
TWO former Royal Military Policemen impersonated real customers at meetings with Lloyds Bank advisers to steal more than £150,000.
After obtaining details from bank diaries about meetings arranged between real account holders and staff, the fraudsters arrived at branches with one claiming to be the genuine client and the other a relative who wanted to open an account linked to theirs.
Once the accounts were joined, they transferred money from the one held in the name of the real customer. Two well-off Lloyds clients were fleeced in the scam.
Knowing they had little time to spare before their fraud was discovered, the criminals quickly spent the money on designer watches and clothes or moved it to other accounts.
A court heard the fraud came to light after the arrest of former RMP soldiers Shaun Orton and Matthew Bookbinder, and a third man, Jamie McKee.
Prosecutor Paul Newcombe told Teesside Crown Court that one customer, who he described as a ‘ high roller’, lost £ 66,900 and another had a total of £84,630 siphoned from his account.
A man with whom Orton visited a branch of Lloyds in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, in August 2016 has never been traced, and neither have others who were said to be higher up the chain in the gang, the court heard.
McKee and Bookbinder visited a branch of the bank in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, the following month and carried out an almost identical swindle. Bookbinder, 45, posed as the legitimate customer, while McKee, 24, said he was marrying into the family and wanted a linked account to help fund a honeymoon.
At one point during the meeting Bookbinder dropped his own bank card on the floor – exposing his real name – but he was able to ‘hoodwink’ the suspicious member of staff with a false story and the transaction went ahead, the court heard.
The prosecutor said Bookbinder had been recruited by Orton, 40, and police had emails in which he was given instructions on how to carry out the fraud.
The precise details of how the gang accessed Lloyds Bank’s diaries are not known, but the case has raised security concerns.
The court heard how Orton visited a jewellers in Sheffield and bought a £17,000 Rolex and tried to get a £25,000 watch in Nottingham, but his card was declined. Over 12 hours, he transferred £50,000 into other accounts before depositing a final £1,500 into his partner’s bank – said to have been his ‘pay’ for his part in the crime.
McKee’s barrister, Amrit Jandoo, said: ‘There are clearly others involved who are higher up the chain and able to extract the money directly.
‘Mr McKee was not aware of the amounts that were going to be taken and was not aware where the money was coming from.’
Mr Jandoo said that on one occasion father- of- one McKee was picked up by a man in a BMW and taken to a shopping centre, told to make a number of purchases and received £200 for his efforts.
Abi Whelan, for Orton, said her client became involved after making contact with someone advertising on Facebook with an opportunity to make extra money.
She added that after his initial visit to the bank, he was contacted again by a threatening gang ‘on a fairly relentless basis’ and recruited McKee ‘to take some of the pressure off him’.
Orton has recently been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of seeing a tragedy while working on an RAF base and his relationship has crumbled, Miss Whelan said.
Holly Betke, for Bookbinder, said he was in debt, had bailiffs knocking at his door and was desperate for money when he was recruited by Orton.
‘He had not realised the scale of this operation and he certainly isn’t an orchestrator of it,’ she added. ‘He absolutely made the wrong decision to get involved.’
McKee, of Colburn, North Yorkshire, admitted conspiracy to steal and was jailed for 18 months. Orton, of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal and fraud, was sentenced to three years and nine months.
Bookbinder, of Southampton, was given 16 months after he admitted theft.
Judge Simon Hickey told the men they had been part of ‘an audacious, planned and sophisticated’ crime and had to be given custodial sentences.
‘Threatened on a relentless basis’