Pills pair must repay victims
A pair of crooks behind an international scam to defraud vulnerable UK residents with bogus health supplements have been ordered to hand over a slice of their ill-gotten gains.
I told last November how Fredy Fernandes and Salvador Rodrigues used call centres in India to inflict the extortionately-priced tablets on their victims.
Their companies, House of Naturecare Limited and Nutri Care Quest Limited, bought vitamins wholesale for 78p a bottle which they then sold for £30.
Around 2,000 people lost £350,000.
The pair, both 44 and from Peterborough, were jailed for four years each for money laundering in a prosecution brought by Hertfordshire Trading Standards.
Now they’ve been ordered to pay £7,500 compensation to victims and had £36,895 worth of assets confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Guy Pratt, deputy director of community protection at Hertfordshire County Council, described them as “callous criminals” and said: “We want to warn Hertfordshire residents and others across the UK about scams similar to this