London: A British-Pakistani conman, who was involved in a £113-million cyber-fraud and made so much money that he flew a team of valets from Scotland to Lahore to polish his fleet of luxury cars, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison by a British court.
Feezan Hameed Choudhary, 25, the mastermind of the biggest cyber- fraud Scotland Yard has ever seen, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and launder money, and was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court last week.
The Glasgow-based criminal partied with pop stars while splurging on Rolex watches, jewellery, trips to Dubai and shopping sprees in Harrods.
He owned several luxury vehicles, including a Bentley and a Lamborghini, after the scam raked in more than £3 million a month.
He was so obsessive about his cars that he flew staff from Platinum Polish in Glasgow on an 8,000-mile round trip to luxury villa in Lahore to shine his fleet of Porsche Cayennes. He also flew the polishers to Dubai to treat a Ferrari and a Lamborghini.
“It was a Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five operation, and they were just smashing victims all day, running their criminal business like a proper business. People sometimes think fraud is a victimless crime, but the impact on the victims’ lives have been very upsetting for them,” detective chief inspector Andrew Gould, head of Scotland Yard’s Falcon Taskforce which tackles cybercrime, told the Times.
Choudhary ran a so-called “vishing” fraud, in which customers were called and tricked into giving their private details before their accounts were robbed.
His gang scammed 750 victims and attempted to steal from thousands more. He was found guilty of setting up a sophisticated criminal network across the country that included his 21-year-old brother Nouman.
