Romanian crime gang jailed for £450,000 eBay auction scam

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/crime-court/golders_green_crime_gang_jailed_for_450_000_ebay_auction_scam_1_4435477

Members of a Golders Green gang who laundered nearly £450,000 in cash from an “industrial sized” internet auction scam have been jailed for a total of more than 18 years

The gang of Romanians offered non-existent cars, vans and caravans for sale on eBay and other auction websites, the Old Bailey heard.

The adverts were linked to fraudulent bank accounts set up using false documents by hundreds of other Romanians the gang brought over to the UK for a few days.

Soon after the prospective buyers had transferred the money, the funds were removed and all lines of communication were cut.

False ID documents for the bank accounts and texts about the movement of money were found at a “fake identity making factory” in Finchley Road, near Golders Green.

Roxanna Trusca, 28, Madalin Popescu, 34, Florin Drechichi, 25, Mihai Cercerlaru, 35, and Christian Calistrache, 31, are due to be sentenced on Thursday for their part in the scam.

The court heard more than £450,000 was washed through accounts, controlled primarily by Popescu who had a key to the Finchley Road address.

Members of the gang from top left clockwise: Christian Calistrache, Mihai Cercerlaru, Florin Drechichi, Madalin Popescu pictures: City of London Police

Roxanna Trusca

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/lucy-gang-of-ebay-scammers-jailed-for-fraud-on-an-industrial-scale-a3189876.html

The auction site pages were linked to fraudulent bank accounts set up by hundreds of Romanians they ferried into the country for a few days on cheap flights. The gang’s ringleader, Madalin Popescu, 34, would collect the “cash mules” from Luton airport and chauffeur them around high street banks across London where a co-conspirator would act as translator to open the accounts.

Police believe the gang of four men and a woman were sometimes opening 10 to 15 bank accounts a day across the capital. They identified 130 victims who lost £450,000 in fake transactions from June 2014 to September 2015.

I've commented on this before but when the situation is described like this

…….. fraudulent bank accounts set up by hundreds of Romanians they ferried into the country for a few days on cheap flights. The gang’s ringleader, Madalin Popescu, 34, would collect the “cash mules” from Luton airport and chauffeur them around high street banks across London where a co-conspirator would act as translator to open the accounts

…. it's like a poor slapstick comedy which, considering international terrorists and fraudsters milking the UK welfare system can use the same methods, it evidences how laughably slack UK banking procedures and legislation are.

Rarely do banks lose money in this situation so there is no pressure on them to change anything. The problem is that an intelligent criminal knows that by taking advantage of the same basic flaws in the banking system he can make the most money by targeting the bank itself which has happened. It only takes some simple basic intelligence and forward planning.

Setting up these 'scam' bank accounts isn't cost free to the bank but they di come with a lot of hassle and the potential to cause the bank substantial loss and reputational damage on rare occasions.