The con artists who tricked innocent Londoners out of their hard earned cash from corrupt Met Police officer to Grindr scammer

Everyday innocent Londoners are conned out of their hard-earned cash by sophisticated scammers looking to make a quick buck by playing fast and loose with the truth. These greedy crooks might think they can live a life of luxury without putting in the work, but they are eventually caught and find themselves in the cells alongside the worst offenders.

Judges deal with fraudsters, conmen and scammers almost every day and their sentences range from jail time to unpaid work. Many are told to face up to their actions, pay prosecution costs, and give compensation to their victims, while some judges order their assets are seized and given back to the victims.

With much of the world now online, fraudsters are finding an ever increasing number of ways to scrape the bank accounts of the most vulnerable. Fraud is now the UK’s most dominant crime, costing the British economy over £130bn a year. Not only does it come as a financial cost, but there is irreparable psychological damage from being hoodwinked by people who claim to be trustworthy.

READ MORE: 46 London criminals locked up in July from sickening child rapists and dangerous drivers to cruel family

Below a list of the con artists sentenced at London’s courts so far this year.

Gang scammed TfL out of £2 million with fake child Oyster cards

After five years of prosecutions, a criminal ring that scammed around £2 million from Transport for London (TfL) was dismantled. According to TfL’s January audit and assurance report, nine people had been successfully convicted for conspiracy to defraud the city’s transport authority.

The scammers offered people cheaper TfL fares they were not eligible for, by submitting fraudulent applications for child-rate Oyster cards. The cards tended to offer 50 per cent discounts on TfL services and free bus/tram travel as part of the 16+ Zip Oyster concessionary scheme.

You can read the full story here.

Fraudster who flirted with elderly woman jailed for life

A “cold-blooded” Lidl worker who carried out a “systematic and sophisticated” plot to plunder an elderly lady’s money before killing her at her home in Highgate was jailed. Fraudster Serkan Kaygusuz, 42, conned Norma Girolami, 70, out of her wealth after flirting with her in the hot tub of the swimming pool in Archway, North London.

After killing her in August 2021, he disposed of her body in a makeshift grave in St James’s Churchyard in Barnet, where she would not be discovered until over a year later. Before carrying out the murder, he had made a number of “sinister” searches online for garden tools, caustic soda, as well as handcuffs and plastic overalls.

You can read the full story here.

Londoners posed as policemen to con elderly people out of £120k

A group of London men posed as police officers in order to con elderly people out of tens of thousands of pounds. Amadeep Sokhal, 36, Kulwinder Singh, 25, and Mehakdeep Thind, 33, carried out a complex scam in order to steal £120,000 from “elderly and vulnerable victims” throughout the North East and West Yorkshire.

You can read the full story here.

East London fraudsters stole over £10 million from taxpayers

Ten Londoners were sentenced after being found guilty of laundering £70m for organised criminals. The fraudsters traded in the sale and purchase of luxury pre-owned watches as a way to launder illicit cash. The crime group posed with stacks of cash, and were seen doing multiple handovers around London during a five year probe.

You can read the full story here.

Serial fraudster stole man’s phone then booked £500 train tickets

A serial fraudster was arrested again just a day after leaving prison, after stealing someone’s phone and using it to buy more than £500 of train tickets. Parmpareet Singh, 53, who is known to target hotels across the UK, has most recently been jailed for stealing a man’s phone in a York hotel, and using his banking app to book trains to London and Manchester.

You can read the full story here.

Woman made £500,000 by claiming refunds from Boots and TK Maxx

A woman who made hundreds and thousands of pounds through a lucrative scam was convicted of fraud. Narinder Kaur – also known as Nina Tiara – earned over £500,000 by tricking shops across the Midlands into refunding her for items she never bought. The 53-year-old ‘made it her full-time career’ to ‘shoplift on an industrial scale’. She struck over 1,000 times over the course of four years, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

You can read the full story here.

Cowboy builders pretended elderly needed urgent building work

Two ‘cowboy builders’ were jailed after they conned four victims into believing they needed urgent work being done before charging them an extortionate amount of money. William Eastwood, 31, and Jack Harbour, 31, both from Essex, would randomly approach their victims before telling them of urgent building work that needed doing on their homes.

You can read the full story here.

Conman caught after ordering Deliveroo using fake names

A Croydon fraudster who conned hundreds of thousands of pounds out of banking customers was jailed for more than three years. National Crime Association (NCA) cyber crime investigators found that Belarusian national Denis Kupcevich, 43, was using stolen identities to commit fraud and open bank accounts through which he would launder the illicit earnings.

Kupcevich was tracked down after officers linked banking details in the name of one of his aliases with Deliveroo deliveries to a flat in Baines Close, South Croydon.

You can read the full story here.

Tax cheat convicted for £97 million fraud bought blue plaque house

One of Britain’s biggest tax cheats bought a house in London thought to be worth £4 million, and came complete with a blue plaque. Arif Patel, 55, used his company to buy Sir William Nicholson’s house in Hampstead. The historic five-floor house is in the same neighbourhood as Harry Styles, Ricky Gervais, and Benedict Cumberbatch’s homes.

Patel, 55, and his gang imported and sold knock-off designer gear. They made millions more from false VAT claims by faking exports of clothes and mobile phones – ploughing it into UK property.

You can read the full story here.

Cleaner got luxury hotel job then stole £400,000 in jewellery

A cleaner who stole almost £400,000 in jewellery in a series of high-end burglaries was jailed for over five years. Sabrina Rova, 23, had gained unauthorised access to rooms while employed by three hotels and stole items including Rolex watches and a Cartier diamond bracelet from wealthy guests.

You can read the full story here.

Council conned out of £1.5 million with fake lift repairs

Two fraudsters who conned more than £1.5 million from a council for fake lift repairs – including work in a building due to be demolished – were jailed. Stephen Johnson, 62, and Stuart Wickham, 40, swindled Greenwich Council for work that never took place and even for a job in an abandoned building scheduled for imminent demolition.

You can read the full story here.

Gang paid people for their passports to help ‘wicked murderers’

A South London gang who supplied “golden ticket” falsified passports to fugitive criminals including murderers and drug dealers was jailed. Anthony Beard, of Sydenham, who paid vulnerable people for their expired passports so he could apply for renewals using their names but criminals’ photos, was sentenced to six years and eight months at Reading Crown Court on May 16.

You can read the full story here.

Scammer arrested at airport and Lamborghini seized

A serial fraudster who scammed more than 40 victims to fund his luxury lifestyle and Lamborghini Aventador was jailed. Jonathan Allard, 39, played a key role in the £4 million investment scam before he was arrested at a London airport in November 2016 following an investigation.

You can read the full story here.

Mortgage advisor scam artist jailed after £16,000 swindle

A fraudster was jailed after conning four victims out of nearly £16,000 by pretending to be a mortgage adviser. Jaspal Singh Juttla, 64, had offered to assist his victims, some of whom could speak little to no English, in property purchases before fleecing them of their money.

You can read the full story here.

Corrupt Met Police officer took dead people’s bank details

A Metropolitan Police officer admitted abusing his position to get hold of dead people’s bank card details. Muhammed Mustafa Darr, 37, pleaded guilty to two charges of misconduct in public office at Southwark Crown Court on following a corruption probe. The details were ‘then used to acquire or seek to acquire goods or money transfers for himself or others by fraud, and to sell on goods obtained fraudulently’, according to the charge.

You can read the full story here.

Knife gang caught after using stolen bank details to buy takeaway

A group of teenagers who stole £115,000 worth or cryptocurrency in knifepoint robberies were caught after police found them using stolen bank details to pay for a takeaway. The thieves operated between June 2021 and January 2022 and committed a string of robberies and attempted robberies across London.

You can read the full story here.

Conman posing as policeman caught by vigilante neighbours

Vigilante neighbours nabbed a scammer who tried to con an 89-year-old man in North London. John Payne, 48, of Maitland Park Villas, Camden, posed as an undercover police officer and called the vulnerable elderly man at his home in Kingsbury, Brent, in June 2020, telling him he had counterfeit money.

You can read the full story here.

‘Disgusting’ fraudster drove in Rolls Royce to prey on elderly

A fraudster who posed as a landlord, police officer, and bank employee in a series of scams against elderly people was jailed for eight years. Kishan Bhatt, 28, of Franklin Avenue, Watford, picked up one elderly woman in a white Rolls Royce and drove her to Hatton Garden to buy gold, but jewellers twigged something was up and refused to sell to her.

You can read the full story here.

Grindr scammer who blackmailed and robbed dates jailed again

A man who used dating app Grindr to blackmail and rob men after having sex with them was jailed for another two years. Anouar Sabbar, 29, of Cole Street, Southwark, was sentenced to two years and three months at Snaresbrook Crown Court on July 25 after more victims came forward in response to media reports of his last sentencing in January 2022.

Sabbar pleaded guilty to seven counts of blackmail, two counts of attempted fraud, and theft at the same court on June 14. He previously pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud, five counts of blackmail, robbery, and theft at the same court on November 8 2021.

You can read the full story here.

3 firms admit fleecing Royal Mail of £70 million over 10 years

Three companies who fleeced Royal Mail of at least £70 million over ten years changed pleas just one week into their trial. Millions of pounds were pocketed in the fraud, which involved the under-declaration of mail that was posted through a network of logistics companies in Buckinghamshire and Berkshire.

You can read the full story here.

Got a story or a tip off? Please email callum.cuddeford@reachplc.com or WhatsApp 07580255582

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