Fraud Squad – a new documentary series on ITV1 – screens episode one on Friday, August 26, for an hour from 9pm.
The TV documentary shadows Detectives as they investigate one of the biggest share frauds in Britain. The hunt for the Nigerian ringleader and his gang takes detectives across the playgrounds of Europe. <br><br>Will they recover the £20m stolen from British victims – before the gang spend it on their lavish lifestyles? <br><br>With unique access over two years, Fraud Squad shows the challenges British police face in dismantling a global criminal network and sheds light on the devastating impact fraud has on the British victims. <br><br>Fraud is the new goldmine for organised crime. An estimated 3.2 million people in Britain have become victims to an ever growing number of mass marketing scams. The gangsโ most lucrative enterprise is Boiler Room fraud. People are conned into buying worthless shares in fictitious companies. Some victims lose their homes, others have committed suicide. <br><br>The City of London Police Economic Crime Department has identified 1,200 Boiler Rooms making criminal gangs more than £300 million a year. <br><br>Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Head warns: โThey will bleed people dry, they will keep on pressurizing them until they have got absolutely everything they can. There are tens of thousands of victims of this kind of crime out there in the UK.โ <br><br>The Gangs run their operations from Spain, cold calling from anonymous offices, using high pressure sales techniques and intimidation. <br><br>Detective Inspector James Clancy describes how they target their victims: โThey steal share lists from companies, and they just go through the list and see if they can get people to buy. The shares are of no value, and then the funds are just gone. In the simplest form it is just straight forward theft.โ <br><br>The gangs mirror international corporations using slick websites, glossy brochures and mass market emails to convince investors their product is real. It lures in thousands of victims a year, hitting every strata of British society. Judges, accountants and even former policemen have been conned <br><br>With unique access to The City of London Police, โFraud Squadโ follows the 18 month investigation into 30 year old George Abrue and his criminal associates. Abrueโs operation is truly global. He has numerous false identities, has laundered his cash with the help of corrupt bankers and has criminals working for him across Europe. His fraud fuels his lavish lifestyle. <br><br>Detective Inspector James Clancy says โHeโs driving Maseratis and Ferraris. Heโs got a £4m house in Sweden. He has got a property portfolio in Spain. I can see millions of pounds moving through his accounts.โ <br><br>The most vulnerable are Abrueโs prime targets. Ninety one year old John Learmonth lost more than £100,000 to Abrueโs gang. Johnโs savings were there to help pay for the care of his disabled wife. <br><br>John Learmonth says: โNo human being should be allowed to inflict this on somebody else. Theyโre despicable. They out there to make money out of people at any price or at any discomfort to the other person.โ <br><br>Detective Chief Inspector David Clark says: โItโs callous, Itโs calculated. They hide behind a telephone call, a website and very rare do they ever come out and actually meet their victimsโ <br><br>Criminal gangs share the lists of people they have conned. It leads to repeat victimization. Detectives are present when victim John Learmonth receives a phone call and menacing demand from another boiler room. <br><br>โThis has given me a shock. I havenโt got the same confidence as I had. I have discussed it very little with my wife. I donโt want her worried and bothered about it. Whether we will get our money back or a small portion of it, I donโt know?โ (John Learmonth). <br><br>For Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Head itโs a familiar picture: โOnce you have been identified as a victim you will find that your details are being traded like another commodity. โ <br><br>Sheila Wright Hogeland lost hundreds of thousands of pounds to a Boiler Room. <br><br>She says: โI have lost virtually everything I had, and virtually everything my mother had, itโs all gone. I canโt pay any bills, Iโm going to lose my home, I have been here for twenty years. They have taken our livelihood. <br><br>โI feel guilty I feel ashamed that I was taken in. Iโm not an unintelligent person. I said to the police I acted completely out of character in doing this. But they said every single victim has said that, and thatโs a reflection not so much on the victims but on the perpetrators, that they are so cunning. The people who perpetrate this are evil, they are cowardly. I think they must be sociopaths, they obviously donโt care about the consequences for anybody.โ <br><br>Detectives discover Abrue built his criminal network around a group of close friends he met in Northumbria. His wife Sarah Robson launders the victimโs money and is addicted to the high life of Champagne, Louis Vuitton and 5 star holidays. The best man at Abrueโs wedding Sam Hamid and his friends run the Boiler Rooms from Spain and Majorca. <br><br>Fraud Squad trails detectives as they launch simultaneous raids across Europe to arrest and dismantle Abrueโs criminal enterprise. As the gang members are brought into custody, the ringleader manages to slip through the net. <br><br>Detectives devise a cunning trap to entice Abrue out of hiding. They secretly use his wifeโs mobile phone to text him and lure him to Copenhagen airport for arrest. <br><br>As DCI David Clark puts it: โSometimes to catch a deviant you have got to be a deviantโ <br><br>Computers and mobile phones seized from the gang members provide clues to the fraud. The gangโs vanity has been their undoing. Cataloguing the trappings of their wealth theyโve taken pictures of their Ferrariโs, designer clothes and expensive jewellery. <br><br>DCI David Clark says:โThey are taken over by Boiler rooms and they are almost brainwashed by the money they can earn. It is the greed of money that drives the crime and that takes over all of their conscientiousness about how they actually hurt the victim and the tragedies they are causing in the UK.โ <br><br>In Spain, detectives try to recover the stolen money for the victims. But assets were not a priority for the gang, lifestyle was. Ringleader Abrue spent £100,000 in just one weekend flying friends from around the world to his birthday party. <br>The detectives have the tough job of telling the victims where all their money has gone.<br><br>Detective Inspector Dave Manley says: โFor them it is over, it is finished and they will just live in poverty. A lot of them wonโt work again because they are all retired, so they donโt have the ability to build up another nest egg, another lot of lifeโs saving, buy another property. So each day when they wake up it will be one of the things they realize because theyโll lives have changed foreverโ <br><br>Fraud Squad sheds light on how British organised crime has gone international. <br><br>Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Head says: โGlobal boundaries have almost no meaning for criminal networks. There was a sense amongst these people that once they were outside the UK they were untouchableโ <br><br>Fraud Squad is a two part series by Wild Pictures, makers of the acclaimed Strangeways, Smugglers and Wormwood Scrubs. <br><br>It is directed and Series-Produced by Tom Anstiss. The executive producer is Paul Hamann. <br><br>Producer/Director Tom Anstiss says โFraud is wrongly viewed by some as a white-collar gentlemanโs crime, which can be seen as victimless. However it is one of the fastest growing crimes in Britain and has a devastating impact on thousands of people. Many victims suffer in silence. The stigma of being defrauded means they are too ashamed to tell their family and friends.โ
