KAREEM: ONLINE FRAUDSTERS HAD INFO ON 16,000 BANK ACCOUNTS

Three bungling online fraudsters were snared when they sent an incriminating email to one of their victims, a court heard.
 
Ayodeji Kareem, 39, Babatunde Fafore, 41, and Vincent Alonge, 32, hacked into thousands of bank accounts to steal more than £1.1m from customers in a major ‘phishing’ scam.

They had also made unsuccessful attempts to steal £4.25m from banking customers in the same period of the fraud, which ran between January 2008 and August 2010.

The Nigerian crooks were only caught when a holidaymaker returned home to find an email containing 600 names, addresses and passwords had been sent from his account.

This led officers from the Police Central E-crime Unit first to Alonge and then Kareem and Fafore via 4,000 emails between the men and other gang members.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard computer records revealed the fraudsters chatted online while accessing victims’ bank accounts.

At one stage during a conversation on April 7, 2008, Fafore typed ‘Done, I did £3,019.23’.

That same day exactly £3,019.23 was transferred from an account with Lloyds TSB into a Santander account, though the payment was later recalled and refunded to the original account.

David Hughes, prosecuting, said the customer remembered receiving an email purporting to be from her bank asking her to log into her account because it had been blocked by security.

He said: ‘She logged into a bogus bank web site and thus her account and personal details were obtained and subsequently fraudulently used by two of the conspirators, Fafore and Kareem.’

Kareem was found to have 2,660 credit and debit card numbers along with details of 1,552 bank accounts and 15 bogus bank web pages.

Fafore, described as the ‘principle conspirator’, had the numbers for 490 cards, the details of 1,982 bank accounts and three fake bank web pages.

Alonge had a stash of 12,745 sets of card details, 182 sets of account details and 22 bogus web pages stored on his personal e-mail account.

‘Kareem, Fafore and others unknown were involved in a sophisticated and concerted attack on the banking and credit card system by the criminal misuse of the internet to fraudulently access and make unauthorised transfers from the bank accounts of innocent account holders to accounts in the name of others, and acquired monies fraudulently obtained by making unauthorised transactions on the credit and debit cards of innocent cardholders.

‘Many thousands of accounts were affected by these three men.’

One victim alone was fleeced out of £219,000, after the gang obtained his signature from Companies House.

Mr Hughes said: ‘Such documents are valuable to criminals because they are able to impersonate the account holder in opening new accounts and obtaining credit and debit cards and subsequently using them.’

The victim had £219,186 transferred from his account in tranches of £50,000 to another account which had been opened in his name without his knowledge or authorisation.

Mr Hughes said: ‘The effect on the victims of this type of criminal activity cannot and should not be under estimated.

‘Victims feel violated, financially exposed, lose trust in the banking system and have their lives severely disrupted.’

A search of Alonge’s home uncovered a fake Nigerian passport and emails containing information relating to phishing, details of bank accounts and details of credit and debit cards used by Kareem and Fafore.

Kareem, of (Flat 41) Thames Court, Daniel Gardens, Peckham, south London, and Fafore, of (13) Claremont, Navan, County Neath, the Republic of Ireland, admitted conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to acquire and use criminal property.

Alonge, of (31) Esher Gardens, in Wimbledon, southwest London, admitted possession of a false ID card and possession of an article for use in fraud.

Judge Neil Sanders is due to pass sentence later today (mon).

ENDS