Fraudsters have been hauled before court after conning their way into piles of cash to spend on their luxurious lifestyles. One gang took more than £2million from taxpayers when they claimed the hefty sum as part of Covid funding.
The “persistent and sophisticated fraud” saw ten men sentenced for a combined total for more than 50 years. Elsewhere, a cowboy builder ruined people’s lives while he spent his time on fancy holidays and in luxury cars.
Adam Jones conned 37 people out of thousands of pounds each while forcing many out of their dangerous and unliveable properties. And some of the people listed below conned the people in their lives who thought of them as friends.
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Margarita Clark took £118,000 from a neighbour as part of a fake Spanish property con. The 72-year-old criminal splashed the ill-gotten gains on high-end fashion, a brand new motor and even managed to convince the victim to foot the bill for a plush trip to Dubai.
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Adam Jones
Adam Jones
A cowboy builder who ripped off dozens of victims and destroyed their lives in a £1.5m fraud has been jailed. ‘Professional confidence trickster’ Adam Jones conned 37 victims, many from the West Midlands, out of thousands of pounds each.
Meanwhile he and his wife – who played a major part in the racket – lived a life of luxury – staying in a converted barn, jetting off on holidays, driving expensive cars and even running a pub, Birmingham Crown Court heard. The 41-year-old forced many of his customers out of their dangerous and unliveable properties.
He also left them in financial ruin as well as physically and mentally unwell. Among his victims, which included cancer patients, was a terminally-ill man who was denied his final wish to die at home and instead passed away in a hospital.
Another couple were told they could have been killed due to a gas risk Jones caused and another man was electrocuted due to the ‘shameful’ state of electrics. Many victims were left with anxiety and depression while one admitted feeling suicidal.
Jones, of New Road, Newport, was jailed for three years and nine months on Wednesday, December 18, having admitted a charge of participating in a fraudulent business carried on for a fraudulent purpose.
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Qirat Deeas, Ummer Yousaf, Sajid Hussain, Tassaddaq Hussain, Usaamah Bin Taariq, Noah Deen, Sameer Ali Mohammed, Imaan Hussain and Naqeeb Shakurt
Centre: Qirat Deeas. Clockwise from top left: Ummer Yousaf, Sajid Hussain, Tassaddaq Hussain, Usaamah Bin Taariq, Noah Deen, Sameer Ali Mohammed, Imaan Hussain and Naqeeb Shakurt.
A group of crooks who fraudulently claimed more than £2m worth of Covid-19 funding were jailed for a combined total of nearly 50 years. They made bogus applications for small business grants, bounce back loans, the eat out to help out scheme and self assessment payments following the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020.
Twelve men were convicted for their involvement, ten of whom were sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court in December. Judge Roderick Henderson said: “This was a persistent and sophisticated fraud involving stealing large amounts of money from the community at the time of national emergency.
“The urgency of the situation meant money was paid out with very few checks. These defendants saw this and cashed in.”
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John Kavanagh
John Kavanagh
A woman in her eighties had her £20,000 life savings stripped after she agreed to help her daughter’s boyfriend who was actually a cruel conman. John Kavanagh concocted a series of lies to both women which included him pretending to own a transport company which desperately needed cash.
Newcastle Crown Court heard the fraudster told the daughter, who he met on dating website, that he needed money for a range of reasons including new tyres, wages, and insurance.
Both women have both since died. Judge Gavin Doig sentenced the 58-year-old, who has over 100 offences on his record, to four years in prison. Prosecutor Jane Foley told the court Kavanagh kept up the façade for months and after his arrest he told officers he saw his elderly victim as a “stepmother” who he “loved to bits.”
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Richard Lester
A fraudster bragged about his lavish lifestyle while he scammed more than 180 victims out of £400,000 by selling “cruise miles”. Disgruntled victims of Richard Lester eventually raised the alarm on his Ponzi-style scam to flog cruises at heavily discounted prices only for the trips to never be booked.
Lester, 56, formerly of Brentwood but now of Swifts Green Road in Luton, was unanimously convicted in December of fraudulent trading and concealing criminal property after he was caught at the head of a Ponzi-style scam selling “cruise miles”.
Miles were bought through agents and exchanged for cruises through Lester’s website at heavily discounted prices, but no cruise was booked for them. Some only discovered this when they turned up at ports for holidays and were turned away by the cruise operators.
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Gerald Smith
Gerald Smith
A notorious fraudster who lived in luxury while owing taxpayers £72million in an unpaid court order has been jailed for 18 months over a Covid loan scam. Gerald Smith was found guilty of cheating the public by taking out a £50,000 “bounce-back” loan during the pandemic to pay the legal fees of one of his closest associates. Smith, 69, claimed his firm Arcana Solutions (UK) Ltd had been adversely affected by the pandemic.
Sentencing at Southwark crown court in London, Judge Justin Cole said Smith had made a “calculated and cynical” attempt to exploit the system, aggravated by his record of dishonesty dating back 31 years. Smith blew a kiss to his wife and daughters as he was led to the cells.
The former GP was jailed for two years in 1993 for taking £2m from the Farr Group’s pension fund in an attempt to keep the recession-hit construction business afloat.
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Zahid Khan
Zahid Khan
Infamous Birmingham fugitive Zahid Khan is behind bars following more than five years on the run. Over the years the 38-year-old from Moseley has attracted many labels; victim, entrepreneur, businessman, millionaire, pilot, show-off and in more recent times, criminal.
Perhaps the most significant phrase to describe him is fraudster, as that is what he was convicted of in 2018 when he sensationally fled the country at the end of his trial as the jury went out to deliberate. Khan, who had sacked his lawyers, delivered his own ‘erratic’ closing speech but then went on to try and sway the jurors by posting unused text messages on his Facebook.
His attempt was unsuccessful and he was ultimately found guilty of multiple offences and sentenced to ten years in his absence.
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Margarita Clark
Margarita Clark
(Image: Herts Police)
A conwoman who had previously been jailed for swindling £2.5m from her pals found herself back behind bars after conning her former neighbour out of a whopping £118k. Margarita Clark, 72, spun a web of lies about buying property in Spain and dangled the carrot of investment to the victim, promising a slice of the interest in return.
Clark, from Bayford, Hertfordshire, kept up the charade of phoney property tales to extract more cash from the unsuspecting victim, racking up around £118,000. She splashed the ill-gotten gains on high-end fashion, a brand new motor and even managed to convince the victim to foot the bill for a plush trip to Dubai.
The family of the victim uncovered Clark’s shady past with a simple Google search, revealing that she had been sentenced to 40 months in prison back in 2014, after fleecing friends of £2.5million.
In her previous scams, Clark had tricked six victims into parting with their life savings under the pretence of investing in bogus property deals, all while dining in posh restaurants and holidaying in the Caribbean. Clark was handed a 43-month sentence at St Albans Crown Court in September, after admitting to fraud by false representation.
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