FOUR men who pretended to be police officers as they conned more than £100,000 out of elderly and vulnerable victims in a nationwide fraud have been sentenced to a total of 15 years. 

The four men sentenced at Leeds Crown Court, who are all from London, admitted conspiracy to commit fraud after a 15 month investigation by the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit which took in 13 different area across England.

Some of their victims were in the Burnley area. 

Malik Amer, 24 of Monthorpe Road and Shah Ahmed, 22, of Toynbee Street were sentenced to four years seven months, Rahim Ali, 22, of Vernon Road to three years, six months and Ruhel Miah, 19, of Chilton Street to four years and 11 months. 

A further man from London admitted one offence of fraud and will be sentenced at a later date.

The investigation started after a number of fraud cases involving people pretending to be police officers were reported to police in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

The group involved would phone unsuspecting victims with the caller pretending to be a police officer claiming to be investigating fraudulent transactions or activities within the victim's bank account.

The bogus police officer would then try and convince his victim that he needed their money to be able to investigate the fraud.

From this point the victim was informed that they needed to go to the bank and withdraw a large amount of money - usually between £5,000 and £20,000.

The bogus officer would then send someone around who would also pretend to be a police officer or someone working for the police to the victim's house to collect the money.

An alternative method the group used to collect their ill-gotten gains was to get the victim to directly transfer the cash to another 'safe' bank account.

As officers began to investigate the cases it was quickly established that the offenders were committing similar offences across the country.

Many of the recorded crimes did not succeed - but they still managed to con ten victims out of a total of £118,000.

The largest single amount defrauded was £37,000.

A total of 60 offences were recorded in Humberside, Staffordshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Kent, Essex, Sussex, Hertfordshire, the Thames Valley area and London area.

Det Insp Martin Melvin, of Lancashire Police, said: “These men committed a number of despicable crimes against elderly and vulnerable residents across the Preston and Burnley areas.

“They posed as police officers to gain the confidence and trust of the victims before betraying them for financial gain.

“While these crimes happened across the country, a number of people in Lancashire fell victim to the scam.

“We were able to warn the majority of people about these offenders through the media, but unfortunately some people had already lost large sums of money.

“Working alongside colleagues from other forces we quickly established the calls were coming from the London area and traced the offenders. The group was subsequently arrested and charged.

“This case serves as a reminder if you get these types of phone calls, report it to the police and your bank before transferring any money into another account or agreeing to hand any of your cash over.

“People who commit these offences will often target the elderly posing as officials to gain their trust. No police officer or other official body will ever ask for your bank details or would ever ask you to withdraw or transfer funds.

“We welcome the sentences and hope they serve as a warning to others – if you commit these crimes, we will catch you.”