In the Media

Police search for 11,000 in identity scam

PUBLISHED June 9, 2012
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Members of a multi-million pound organised crime gang which ran the Confidential Access (CA) website were jailed on Friday but detectives are now hunting up to 11,000 people who used the service.

Detective Sergeant Christopher Richards, of the Metropolitan Police's economic and specialist crime unit, said: "It was basically a fraud factory, a continued conveyor belt of consistently produced fraud.

"If you were somebody using that site illegally, expect a knock at the door. If you sell or purchase false documents on the internet, the police will come looking for you."

Scotland Yard is liaising with other forces, including Greater Manchester Police and Hampshire Constabulary, to trace customers who bought fraud packages for up to £5,500.

The £11 million-a-year website sold false passports, payslips and bank statements. It also coached users on how to carry out fraud via secure online chat forums.

Judge David Higgins said the gang, who ran the site from Alicante in Spain while others in the UK monitored the website and produced false documents, had undertaken identity theft on an "industrial scale".

Jason Place, 42, Mark Powell-Richards, 59, Michael Daly, 68, Allen Stringer, 57, Jaipal Singh, 31, and Arun Thear, 22, were arrested after undercover reporters bought a fake driving licence in the name of former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Jailing Mr Place for six years and nine months, the judge said: "You, Jason Place, were the mastermind behind a scheme whereby with careful planning and sophisticated use of the most modern forms of information technology false documents of the highest quality such as passports, utility bills and banking statement were created.

"In turn, they were used to steal the identities of innocent people or to create entirely fictitious people.

"The whole package was then sold to actual or potential fraudsters who used the documents, for example, in support of loan applications. Of course the loans were not repaid."

He went on to describe Mr Powell-Richards as a 'facilitator' who provided 'crucial information' to the scam before jailing him for two years and three months.

Mr Daly was handed a 12 month jail sentence suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 250 hours unpaid work. Stringer was jailed for two years and three months.

Mr Singh was sentenced to 18 months after Judge Higgins said his criminality was aggravated by the 'corruption' of Mr Thear.

Mr Thear received a six-month sentence suspended for two years together with 150 hours of unpaid work.

The website provided bogus documents including payslips, bank and credit card statements, P60s, electoral registration forms, MOT certificates, passport pages, and GCSE certificates, passing them off as 'novelty products'.

In 2008 Mr Place, who ran the operation from his home in Alicante, Spain, claimed Confidential Access had a membership of over 10,000 and a net worth of over $200m.

The court heard the website was first uncovered in 2006 after officers swooped on the home of suspected terrorist Abid Haider and discovered links to it on his computer.

Malcolm Swift QC said: 'It soon became clear that Confidential Access was in the business of providing fraudsters with all the tools needed to create false identities in order to commit fraud.'

Mr Swift said the site was part of a 'sophisticated and high-tech organisation' run by Mr Place and another man Barry Sales, 54, and also operated under the names Credit Master and Masters of Credit.

Between 2004 and 2008 the site had a reported turnover on £11m with fraudsters paying from around £50 for a utility bill to £800 for a set of three years professionally sealed and certified trading accounts with a reference.

Criminals were also required to hand over half the profits of their 'first hit' made using Confidential Access' documents.

Mr Swift said: "Confidential Access was paid substantial sums for its products.

"Fraudsters would routinely pay many thousands of pounds for their new identities.

"The CA website also hosts forums in which members openly discuss fraud and potential fraudulent schemes and auctions, which they called cBay, in which identity documents could be traded."

The site gave fake references from a bogus firm 'National Chartered Accountancy Network' in the name of Richard Braysher, a real accountant whose identity had been hijacked by Mr Place.

Many of the false documents bore a solicitors stamp forged by Mr Place from an actual firm of solicitors, Norton Rose.

Searches of the website's servers in Hong Kong revealed that between 2002 and 2009 Mr Place had netted more than £850,000 from orders for fake paperwork.

The court heard Mr Powell-Richards allowed Mr Place and Mr Sales to use his accounts with Experian and Equifax to trawl credit ratings and more than 2,000 searches were made via his firm M Nightingale.

Mr Swift said: "His role was to allow Sales and Place to use his accounts to research names and addresses to identify suitable creditworthy victim identities.

"These searches were crucial to the conspiracy as they provided the raw information required to create a false identity.

"Powell-Richards was therefore providing an outwardly respectable face for this criminal organisation and providing an apparently legitimate means of acquiring otherwise confidential information."

Mr Powell-Richards netted £100,000 for his help.

The court heard Mr Daly, Mr Stringer, and Mr Singh operated as UK based printers and distributors for Place and Sales.

When officers raided their homes they discovered expensive printing equipment linked to encrypted computers.

Investigators later discovered templates including bank and credit card statements, tax and employment documents, and motoring documents, on the devices.

Mr Daly pocketed more than £107,000 for his role, while Mr Stringer raked in £60,000, and Mr Singh saw £25,000 pass through his account.

Mr Thear, a cousin of Mr Singh's wife, worked for Mr Singh for three weeks in the summer of 2008 operating the computer and printing fake documents for £6.50 an hour.

In April, Mr Place, who had to be extradited from Gibraltar, became the final member of the gang to plead guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to defraud between September 1, 2003, and June 8, 2009.

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