Evening Standard reports that 35-year-old Tejay Fletcher assisted in stealing of about £43 million from UK citizens alone, and phone scammers worldwide managed to defraud 100 million people in total.
The website’s owner, who enabled phone scammers to initiate calls on behalf of banks, taxing agencies, and other governmental organizations, was brought to justice in London.
What’s special about this case?
The London police have referred to this investigation as being the biggest in their history when it comes to the harm that fraud has done. Several individuals pretended to be bank representatives on the iSpoof website, including Barclays, Santander, HSBC, Lloyds, Halifax, First Direct, Natwest, Nationwide, and TSB. Over 200 thousand persons were victims of scammers in all, and 70 thousand of them testified to British authorities. The site managers made £3.2 million off of it personally, with Fletcher taking home £1.3 million.
Here’s what Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor Thomas Short said about it:
“As a major admin of the iSpoof website, TJ Fletcher gave criminals the means to steal staggering sums of money from unsuspecting individuals.”
Outcomes
At the first hearing, Fletcher admitted to participating in the scam in a London borough court. In a statement, the prosecution said that the iSpoof founder’s activities triggered “enormous mental anguish and sorrow” to the fraud sufferers.
The results of this analysis demonstrate that the claims made by representatives of illegal internet services regarding their desire to grant anonymity to users are untrue. Detective Constable Ed Sehmer said:
“The police can and will find those who use such services.”
On May 18, Fletcher will be imprisoned.