Two Indian-origin men are among six people jailed over a multi-million-pound cyber racket that involved the design, production and sale of fake identities and the management of online forums where clients were coached on how to commit fraud.
The six sentenced on Friday at the Southwark Crown Court for a catalogue of fraud offences include Jaipal Singh, 31, who is a director of a telecom company based in the West Midlands, and student Arun Thear, 22, also based in the West Midlands.
All six pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing. Besides Singh and Thear, the other four are Jason Place (42), Mark Powell-Richards (59), Allen Stringer (57) and Michael Daly (68).
Jaipal Singh was sentenced to 18 months for conspiracy to defraud, contrary to Common Law, while Arun Thear was sentenced to 6 months in jail, suspended for two years, and 150 hours unpaid community service for forgery, contrary to section 1 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981.
Jason Place and Barry Sales ran operations from the comfort of their Spanish villas in Alicante while employees based at locations around the UK would monitor the website Confidential Access and work on producing various documents, including false bank statements, wage slips, driving licences and utility bills.
The Metropolitan Police said that documents were billed as novelty items for the purposes of impressing friends. However, the police investigation that lasted nearly two and a half years revealed a "well-practised production line of very authentic documents for the purpose of committing fraud."