The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have reported that an ex-council employee and a roofing firm worker have both been jailed for fraud and bribery against New Forest District Council. Richard Cullen, former council maintenance operative, received a 10% cut of profit for each maintenance job he referred Mark Diaper, former roofing company worker, for. Inflated invoices were submitted of which more than £88,000 was overcharged but the jobs referred to the company were worth much more. Cullen and Diaper have been sentenced to 58 months' and 32 months' imprisonment respectively.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that a former council worker, Tyler Evans, has been extradited to the UK and jailed for four years and eight months for stealing almost £1m in taxpayer money from a local authority. Evans pleaded guilty to one count of fraud by abuse of position and another of money laundering at Birmingham Crown Court on 15 December 2022. According to the CPS, Evans arranged for the refund of bond payments to his own bank accounts or those owned by his associates. The CPS has stated that it will be pursuing confiscation proceedings against Evans to recover the criminal property from which he has benefitted.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that Mohammad Noman Tanveer, Florian Pierini, Mohommed Hussain and Jeffrey Razaq have been imprisoned for their involvement in a mass investment fraud worth over £13.7m. The CPS has provided that the defendants were part of a ‘boiler room’ investment fraud scheme where a company was set up as a vehicle for the scam and victims were persuaded to invest in a fund to generate income through through buying, upgrading and selling residential properties. More than 800 people had invested in the scheme and payments ranged from £5,000 to £140,000.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that Emmanuel Okunoren, a fraudster, has been imprisoned for four and half years for scamming a victim of nearly £400,000 in a payment recovery fraud. Okunoren was sentenced at Exeter Crown Court after it was demonstrated that he gained the trust of the victim and deceived them by falsely claiming he worked for a company called ‘TMT investments’ and promised the victim he could recover his lost wine cases from the victim’s previous endeavours by paying significant administration fees into a number of different bank accounts over a six-month period.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that David Shivmangal and Glenn Ward were found guilty of fraud and money laundering offences after defrauding multiple elderly victims out of £2,469,620.48 in a boiler room investment fraud. The CPS has provided that elderly victims were targeted using high-pressure sales techniques, cold-called and pressured into investing in diamonds, with the promise of high rate of returns. Shivmangal and Ward had in fact purchased the diamonds cheaply and then sold them to investors at highly inflated prices. The pair also offered ‘safe storage’ of the diamonds which allowed them to re-sell the diamonds to different victims. Shivmangal and Ward were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to three years and nine months and three years imprisonment respectively.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that an organised criminal gang have been jailed for impersonating police officers to defraud victims out of £430,542. Muhammed Rahman, Shoriful Islam, Mohammed Hussain and Mohammed Maarjan previously pleaded guilty to courier fraud offences between 6 August 2021 and 10 November 2021 and were sentenced on 10 June 2022 at Gloucester Crown Court to a total of 21 years imprisonment.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that a lorry driver, Timothy James Goodlad, has been found guilty of fraudulent evasion of duty at Winchester Crown Court on 12 September 2023. The CPS has stated that Goodlad was stopped by Border Force Officers at the Eurotunnel UK Control Zone in France where it was found that the lorry contained 8,319,400 cigarettes instead of the laminate wood that Goodlad's documentation provided for. Goodlad denied knowledge that the lorry contained the cigarettes when interviewed and provided details of where the load had been collected from. The lorry’s tracking system conflicted with Goodlad’s account and prosecutors presented this, along with other evidence, to the jury to prove guilt. The CPS has asserted that the excise duty that should have been paid was calculated at £2,448,492.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that Mohammad Owais Sabir, an insurance clerk from Bradford, has been found guilty of nine terrorism offences, following his arrest in September 2021 and again in February 2022. These offences include entering funding arrangements, fundraising and possession of articles for terrorist purposes, contrary to the Terrorism Act 2000 (TA 2000). The CPS has provided that Sabir will be sentenced on 2 September 2022.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that a man, Jay Morgan Taylor Lang, has been sentenced to 21 years in prison, with a six year extended licence, at Basildon Crown Court on 22 September 2023. This followed a guilty plea to 46 charges including blackmail, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, causing child sexual exploitation and arranging the commission of a child sex offence. The CPS has asserted that it prosecuted Lang after an investigation by Essex Police which identified more than 20 victims between the ages of 11 and 16. The CPS has reported that Lang used social media to pose as a teenage girl to incite the victims to send him indecent images and videos, which Lang recorded to create a library of his offences. Lang later used recordings to blackmail his victims into paying him money or carrying out further sexually explicit acts. The ‘most extreme case’ involved Lang manipulating a victim into meeting him and then subjecting the victim to sexual abuse.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Stephen Parkinson's has written on the need for swift justice. In response to violence resulting from the riots in Southport and then across the country, Parkinson promised that the CPS would prosecute cases swiftly and effectively. Parkinson has noted that the pace of the response has been rapid, with CPS lawyers charging 474 suspects and counting as of 18 August 2024. Parkinson has further highlighted that the CPS is putting 'a stop to the ping-pong of case files between police and prosecutors', by promoting direct conversations to resolve problems that are taking too long. The CPS is also serving the full case on defendants ahead of the first hearing to encourage more defendants to plead guilty early, to avoid trials and free up vital court capacity.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported the conviction of five members of an organised crime family who allegedly promised 16 victims £50 a day to work in the construction industry with free food and accommodation before trapping them in ‘modern slavery’ conditions with no pay. The CPS has provided that the family lured victims from Romania and placed them in four houses in east London before seizing identification documents from the victims to exert control over them. The prosecution used evidence from the victims, close cooperation with Romanian police and analysis of finance, tax and company records to secure the conviction against Vasile Dragoi, Marian Podianu, Florinel Bobi Dragoi, Ion Bogdan Dragoi and Alexandra Ciocodan. All five defendants were convicted of conspiracy to arrange or facilitate the travel of another person with a view to exploitation between 1 January 2017 and 20 October 2017, and conspiracy to convert criminal property between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2017.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have reported that an entrepreneur was convicted of fraudulently obtaining a COVID-19 Bounce Bank Loans to a value of £50,000. Gerald Smith, 69, was found guilty of one count related to fraud and will be sentenced on 20 September 2024. Once he received the loan, he used the funds for personal expenses and to pay an existing £22,000 court costs order.