Organised criminal gang members sentenced for involvement in £1.1m scam

Two members of an organised crime group (OCG) have been sentenced today at Southwark Crown Court for their involvement in committing £1.1 million of fraud, following a successful investigation by the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU), a specialist City of London and Metropolitan police unit funded by the banking and cards industry.

Samillah Safi, 20, received nine months imprisonment for conspiracy to defraud, in addition to a total of 45 months imprisonment for various drugs and driving offences. Zain Ali, 24, received a sentence of two years imprisonment suspended for two years and 200 hours of unpaid work. The OCG members, both from Northwest London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud after the DCPCU's investigation found that Mr Safi and Mr Ali had recruited people to act as money mules by accepting illegally obtained money into their bank accounts.

Victims of the scam received fraudulent text messages sent by other members of the OCG which claimed to be from their bank's fraud department and were designed to harvest the recipient's personal and financial details. This information was then used to commit £1.1 million of fraud, with hundreds of thousands of pounds of victims? stolen funds laundered through the money mule accounts recruited by Mr Safi and Mr Ali.

The fraud was spotted by the victims? bank, who referred the case to the DCPCU for investigation. All victims were fully refunded by their bank.

Detective Constable Matt Cornell, who investigated the case for the DCPCU, commented:

These criminals mistakenly thought they could get away with exploiting other people's bank accounts to clean dirty money which had been callously stolen from innocent victims.

?Fortunately, we were able to bring Mr Safi and Mr Ali to justice.

?The DCPCU will continue to work closely with the banking industry to clamp down on organised crime groups involved in fraud.

Contact Information

UK Finance Press Office

020 7416 6750

press@ukfinance.org.uk

Notes to editor

<ol><li>For more information, please contact the UK Finance press office on 0207 416 6750 or <a href="mailto:press@ukfinance.org.uk">press@ukfinance.org.uk</a>. </li>
<li>Images of Samillah Safi and Zain Ali are available upon request. </li>
<li>Customers can report suspected scam texts to their mobile network provider by forwarding them to 7726, which is free of charge: this will help mobile providers take action, if need be, to block malicious numbers. Customers can also forward any emails they have concerns about to the <a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.n… Email Reporting Service</a>(SERS) at <a href="mailto:report@phishing.gov.uk">report@phishing.gov.uk</a>. </li>
<li>To stay safe, consumers should remember that criminals are experts at impersonating people, organisations and the police and follow the advice of the <a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftakef… Five to Stop Fraud </a>campaign: </li>
</ol><ul><li>Stop: Taking a moment to stop and think before parting with your money or information could keep you safe. </li>
<li>Challenge: Could it be fake? It?s ok to reject, refuse or ignore any requests. Only criminals will try to rush or panic you. </li>
<li>Protect: Contact your bank immediately if you think you?ve fallen for a scam and report it to Action Fraud. </li>
</ul><ol><li value="5">The Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) is a unique pro-active police unit, with a national remit, formed as a partnership between UK Finance, the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police together with the Home Office. It is fully sponsored by the cards and banking industries, with an on-going brief to investigate, target and, where appropriate, arrest and seek successful prosecution of offenders responsible for card, cheque and payment fraud crimes. It is headed up by a Detective Chief Inspector and comprises officers from the Metropolitan and City of London police forces who work alongside banking industry fraud investigators and support staff. <a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.u… 2020</a>, the unit prevented almost £20 million of fraud, disrupted 26 organised crime groups (OCGs), arrested 122 suspected criminals, and secured 54 convictions, including a man who was jailed for sending scam text messages exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to funding the DCPCU, which worked with social media companies to take down 258 social media accounts involved in recruiting money mules in 2020, the banking and finance industry is working hard to tackle money mule fraud by:</li>
</ol><ul><li>Deterring young people from becoming money mules through the <a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmoney… Be Fooled</a> campaign, run jointly by UK Finance and Cifas. More advice from the campaign on how to avoid becoming involved in money mule fraud is available <a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmoney…;. </li>
<li>Working with Pay.UK to implement the <a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2F74n5c… Insights Tactical Solution (MITS)</a>, a technology that helps to track suspicious payments and identify money mule accounts. </li>
<li>Working closely with law enforcement to identify,?arrest and charge the criminal gangs responsible for recruiting money mules. </li>
</ul>Using sophisticated fraud detection software to monitor potential money laundering behaviour among account holders.