Suspected 'Scammer' From Chiswick On The Run

Man on bail in connection with £1m fraud is being hunted by police

A 32-year old man from Chiswick who disappeared while on bail on charges linked to a million pound fraud on a Suffolk company, is being hunted by police.

Members of a gang who specialised in a fraud targeting small businesses have received jail sentences this week.

The man from Chiswick was being questioned in connection with one scam, on a company in Felixstowe, which was conned out of £1million in September 2015. He was arrested and bailed in November 2015.

Southwark Crown court was told that he is now being hunted by police after being re-bailed and failing to return.

The scam on the company in Suffolk was part of a wider fraud targeting small businesses. Police believe the frauds netted £19 million between August 2013 and October 2015 and the money was not recovered by the small businesses involved.

In the Felixstowe incident, money was moved out of the company bank account in September 2015 after a plausible bogus caller told staff there was a virus on the firm's internet banking facility and advised that money should be transferred into separate holding accounts pending the bank rectifying the situation.

Accounts were targeted in a 'vishing' scam masterminded by Fazeen Hameed, 23, from Glasgow. He made phone calls posing as an official from a bank's fraud department and persuaded staff to reveal financial information or use card readers to authorise payments online.

Judge Peter Testar said at the sentencing that Harmeed was "persuasive, authoritative to the point of bullying" as well as "controlling". He received an 11-year sentence. The judge said there was a great deal of sophistication in the fraud.

A previous hearing heard that Hameed had fled to Paris as the rest of the gang was arrested but he was extradited back to Britain for trial.

Some of the money was spent in Harrods, on the use of luxury cars and nightclubs. A firm of solicitors was also targeted to the tune of more than £2 million by the gang.

Other members of the gang from Scotland, Luton and the London area were also given jail terms or suspended sentences.

September 25, 2016