IT fraudster jailed for selling £1 million of software to bank account attackers

The criminal investigation conducted by the City of London Police in tandem with the Metropolitan Police Service revealed that Ijie used an online messaging app, namely ‘Telegram’, to offer specialist software for sale which enabled fraudsters to bypass banking security systems.

Ijie offered the software through a monthly subscription, charging a fee of around £600 per month, which was payable in cryptocurrency.

Across a time period of around eight months, Ijie realised upwards of £1.3 million worth of sales of the product to over 1,000 criminals. It’s unclear as to how many fraudsters might have used the software or the scale of potential victims and losses.

Alistair Dickson of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) observed: “Ijie boasted on social media how successful this software was in terms of enabling the commission of fraud. He bragged that, in one day alone, it had been used by criminals to defraud over 150 victims and posted positive reviews from criminals who had successfully used the software.”

Dickson added: “Potentially, at least, thousands of victims may have had their bank accounts compromised and money stolen from them. Ijie’s guilty pleas and sentence will prevent this software from circulating any further and will help to keep bank accounts secure from fraudsters. We would like to thank the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit for its excellent investigative work.”

As an organisation, the CPS is committed to working alongside law enforcement and investigatory authorities to prosecute those enabling fraudsters intent on harming members of the public.

Organised criminal gang jailed

The members of an organised criminal gang who pretended to be police officers and preyed on elderly victims in a fraud involving more than £400,000 have been jailed. Muhammed Rahman (aged 28), Shoriful Islam (25), Mohammed Hussain, also aged 25, and 23-year-old Mohammed Maarjan were sentenced at Gloucester Crown Court to a total of 21 years’ imprisonment for courier fraud offences. They had previously pleaded guilty to these offences on 6 August 2021 and 10 November 2021 after Gloucestershire Police and the CPS’ Specialist Fraud Division brought a strong case to court.

The organised criminal gang ran its operations from various offices in London, but targeted different parts of the country in more than 7,500 calls. Once they had a victim engaged, the defendants would claim to be the police and explain they were conducting a fraud investigation into counterfeit currency, which had been identified as being transferred through the victim’s bank accounts.

The defendants would encourage the victims to remove money from their bank accounts and hand it over to a ‘courier’ sent by the ‘police’. The gang used others in the network to provide authenticity checks, pretending to be senior police officers or bank officials. They would arrange for taxis to take the often elderly victims to their banks in order to withdraw money.

Aware that banks have protocols to follow when dealing with elderly or vulnerable customers who were attempting to withdraw large amounts of cash, the gang emphasised that bank staff or local police may be involved in the counterfeit currency offences and coached the victims about what to say in response to questions. The total value defrauded by the gang was £430,452.

Convincing presentation

Kevin Hansford from the CPS stated: “The fraudsters presented themselves in a convincing way to victims, securing the trust of hundreds of elderly people through their falsehoods. The sole purpose of the criminals was to enrich themselves at the expense of vulnerable people who badly needed their hard-earned savings and pension income.”

Hansford added: “I would like to thank the many victims who supported this prosecution and the hard-working Gloucestershire and Hertfordshire Police who enabled us to prove the case against this gang’s callous criminal enterprise.”

Detective Inspector Matt Phillips from Gloucestershire Police said: “This sentencing shows how seriously we take courier fraud. It was the result of a lot of really hard work conducted by many officers at the Gloucestershire Constabulary who went above and beyond to ensure that we could show just how low these men were willing to stoop in order to defraud the vulnerable and the elderly.”

Phillips continued: “Any criminal gangs who try to target the people in our communities should know that we will not sit back, but will actively pursue them for their crimes, not just in Gloucestershire, but anywhere in the country. The actions of this gang have exerted a huge impact on many victims who’ve not only seen a huge financial loss, but have also been left with psychological damage resulting in some of them being too scared to answer the telephone or even leave their home. I hope that this sentence will bring some peace of mind to the men and women who were targeted.”

Here in the UK, in the last year alone upwards of £10 million has been lost to courier frauds of this kind.