Don’t open your door to this £3m traveller crime gang
Police issue a warning about fraudsters who prey on elderly
A GANG of travellers suspected of conning the elderly and vulnerable out of £3million were named as some of the country’s most wanted fraudsters yesterday.
Police have launched an appeal to find the five men and one woman whose criminal enterprise has brought misery to dozens of victims across 13 counties.
They are wanted after disappearing while expected in court or released on bail.
The rogue traders, conmen and thieves are suspected of tricking residents into agreeing to unnecessary work on their homes which was never carried out.
In some cases they impersonated judges, police and trading standards officers to dupe their victims into transferring large sums of money.
Leading the gang are husband and wife Kathleen McCarthy, 29, and Oliver Boswell, 30, whose last known address was in Wolverhampton. They have both been convicted of money laundering, with McCarthy pocketing more than £220,000 from 14 elderly victims in just one year. A judge issued a warrant for their arrest after they failed to turn up for their trial at Lewes Crown Court last December.
Other members include James Flynn, 42, also known as James Sheridan, who tricked a west London man into transferring £64,400 into his accounts.
John McCarthy, 33, is wanted for five fraud and money laundering offences in which he posed as a trading standards officer across London, Surrey, Kent and Sussex. He persuaded pensioners that they needed to transfer cash to pay for urgent repairs to flood damage to their homes.
The two other members are John O’Brien, 49, from Cambridge, and Daniel Sheridan, 48, from Wolverhampton.
O’Brien allegedly persuaded a London resident to pay him £75,000 in an advance fee scam – where the victim is convinced to make an upfront payment to obtain a share of a larger sum later.
Sheridan, who isn’t pictured, is suspected of posing as a judge and court officials during a phone call in which he threatened a victim with jail for contempt of court unless he handed over £79,000.
The appeal was issued by the Joint Fraud Taskforce, which comprises police, banks and other industry bodies. It also asked the public to help find two other suspected scammers. The first, Nathan Hudson, 34, of East Yorkshire, is suspected of stealing £110,000 from people who invested in a string of fake businesses.
The second, Denis Marku, 21, of South Norwood, London, is suspected of being a senior member of an Eastern European crime ring. He is accused of using his role as a cashier at a Chelsea bank to steal more than £3million from customer accounts. Speaking about the traveller crime gang, Detective Constable Lee Pocock said: ‘This is organised criminality targeting the most vulnerable in our society.’
Commissioner Ian Dyson, from City of London Police, added: ‘I would urge anyone who has information on the wanted fraudsters to call officers as these people will continue to commit fraud across the globe that cause misery to so many worldwide.’