Eight men jailed for defrauding elderly of £1million

Eight men have been jailed for a total of 34 years for defrauding elderly people out of around £1 million in a phone call scam. 

The National Terrorist Financial Intelligence Unit and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau worked together to bring the men, who used a telephone scam to defraud elderly people, to justice.

The group targeted the vulnerable victims in courier fraud-style scams, using 16 telephone lines to make 5,695 calls to 3,774 different numbers across the UK.

Areas such as Bedfordshire, Devon, Hertfordshire, Cornwall, Kent and London have been heavily targeted.

In one case, a 76-year-old woman from Poole, Dorset, was targeted by the group and defrauded of just over £135,000.

Head of Action Fraud, Pauline Smith said: “Cases such as this demonstrate the importance of providing the courts with a complete picture. This group operated across multiple force areas and digital policing in the form of centralised reporting and analysis through the Action Fraud/NFIB service enabled the NTFIU to evidence the impact of this cruel scam”.