A group of five individuals from Nottingham have been sent to prison after organizing and executing a share fraud scheme. The perpetrators of the crime have been convicted after spending millions on luxury cars, property and overseas travel. The total amount lost by investors has been estimated to the tune of £3 million.
The longest sentence was handed to Abdul Khan, who will spend six years and nine months in prison. Rahim Karim was sentenced to five years and eight months, Nadeem Amin to four years and Anthony Baugh to five years. Another perpetrator, Wasim Karim, was sentenced last week to four years on two offenses of conspiracy to defraud.
The investigation was led by the City of London Police, who discovered that the Nottingham group operated from Palma de Mallorca in Spain and had defrauded over 100 people.
The leading detective on the case, Toby Larkin, commented in the announcement, “The convictions and sentences of this callous criminal gang sends out a clear message to any like minded people that the City of London Police will track them down and put them before the courts. I hope too that the numerous victims and their families in this case can now have some satisfaction from this outcome.”
The perpetrators operated in a boiler room fashion, using VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) to cold call potential investors in the UK. A fraudulent gold mining company named Inca Pacific Gold and Mining and a fraudulent pharmaceutical company under the name Dyno Medical were the top investments promoted by the group to the defrauded investors.
One of the victims handed over £74,000 to the criminals, complimenting the investment with a bottle of champagne and chocolates, while a number of victims borrowed money to invest.
The City of London Police identified the scheme in 2009 after receiving some complaints about the activity of the boiler room operation. The investigation began after the group started to frequently travel between the U.K. Midlands and Spain.
Abdul Khan and Wasim Karim were arrested in September 2010 after having bought laptop computers under a false name. Khan also owned a laptop which stored the account details of several victims and records of the money they had transferred.
The fingerprints of Mr. Karim were later found on investment brochures sent out to prospective investors.
About a year later, Wasim’s brother, Rahim, was arrested at Gatwick Airport after returning from Marrakech. A set of documents found at his home were linked to some wires made by the victims of the fraud.
The final duo - Anthony Baugh and Nadeem Amin, were arrested in Nottingham in September 2011 and July 2012.
