Courier fraudster caught
A gang of so-called “courier fraud” crooks will be getting their first taste of a prison Christmas dinner on Monday.
In August I told how a North London borough is the epicentre of this nationwide fraud that exploits the fact that most of us will help to fight crime.
Under the headline CamDEN of Thieves, I reported how crooks pose as police officers or bank employees investigating fraud and persuade their victims to hand over bank cards or cash to a “police” courier – hence the name of the scam.
Last month nine courier fraud crooks, largely from Camden, were jailed for a total of 33 years.
Helen Wheatley, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “By posing as police officers, they cynically exploited the victims’ trust and conned them into handing over thousands of pounds.”
Almost £40,000 was taken from six victims, while the gang attempted to extract more than £84,000 from another 11 targets.
Now another case helps show why Camden is such a hotspot for this crime.
Council employee Charlie Heath, 23, has been convicted of fraud after forwarding details of 277 elderly residents to crooks and is due to be sentenced tomorrow.
The Metropolitan Police have warned that victims in the capital lost £750,000 to courier fraud in the 15 weeks to the end of November.
Detective Chief Inspector Gary Miles, of the Met’s Fraud and Linked Crime Online (FALCON) unit, said: “This is a particularly despicable deception targeting elderly and vulnerable people.”