The head of a fraud ring has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for his part in a £113m scam, which funded purchases including a fleet of customised Porsches and shopping sprees at Harrods.

Feezan Hameed, 23, partied with pop stars while splashing out on Rolex watches, jewellery and trips to Dubai, London’s Southwark crown court heard.



The Glasgow-based criminal, known as Fizzy, owned several luxury cars including a Bentley and a Lamborghini, paid for from the takings of a £3m-a-month fraud, which involved duping victims over the phone into thinking they were having a conversation with their bank.

He was eventually caught after targeting 750 RBS customers in the biggest cyberfraud the Metropolitan police had seen.

It can be revealed that he was jailed for 11 years last week at Southwark crown court after restrictions were lifted. He admitted conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to convert and transfer criminal property.



Hameed flew people 8,000 miles from Scotland to Pakistan to polish his fleet of Porsche Cayennes outside his villa in Lahore, the court heard.



Michael Shorrock QC, prosecuting, described the fraud as “a nationwide conspiracy to defraud companies and businesses by hacking into their bank accounts and stealing large sums of money” between January 2013 and October 2015.



“Literally within a blink of an eye, this money was being moved from one account to another,” he said. “The fraudsters were able to interfere with the telephone system of the bank customers, so the customer was unable to receive calls while the fraud was taking place.”

Pitman Blackstock Solicitors were fleeced out of £2,260,625.89 after getting a call from someone called “Peter”, who claimed that he was from the security department of Lloyds Bank.



In another instance, £750,000 was transferred in seconds.

Hameed used aliases including “Simon Hughes” and “Matthew Fraser” and would tell unwitting customers that they had been hacked by “someone in Aberdeen called Stevenson or King”.

He was the “leader and prime mover” and made almost all the calls, the court heard, making sure that they appeared to be coming from a location that would not arise suspicion.

Hameed would claim to be a member of the bank fraud department when he called customers, before persuading them to reveal their internet banking details in a “very persuasive, very articulate” manner, Scotland Yard said.

While Hameed kept victims talking, his associates would gain access to their bank accounts and empty them. The fraudsters used a “network of money mules” to disperse the cash, before it was laundered to Dubai and Pakistan.

Between January 2013 and October 2015, the gang took £113m from victims, of which £47m has been recovered. The outstanding amount is believed to have been laundered from the UK.

The scam was brought to an end in a series of police raids in Glasgow and the West Midlands last year.



Hameed took £500,000-£1.5m a month, prosecutors said. He spent time with the Pakistani singer Bilal Saeed and claimed to have been producing a music video for him, the court heard.

Hameed was arrested after trying to board a flight from Paris to Pakistan with a fake passport last November. He was then returned to the UK to face trial.



DCI Andrew Gould said: “When they were at their height, when they’d really got the hang of this, they were probably making £1m-£2m a week.

“It was a Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five operation, and when they were busy and active, they were just smashing victims all day, every day, running their criminal business like a proper business.”

The gang were extremely sophisticated in their techniques, displaying false telephone numbers on the phones of victims and disposing of prepaid phones and dongles once they had completed a hit.

Hameed kept clear of the cash and was treated with “respect and deference” by the rest of the group, despite only being in his twenties.

“He is very much the controlling guy, totally in charge,” Gould said. “The kind of guy that when he flies to Dubai for a weekend shopping with his chums, they all fly economy, he flies first class.”

DC Neil O’Sullivan of the Metropolitan police’s Falcon (online crime and fraud) unit said: “This was the largest covert proactive operation the Met has ever undertaken against cyber-enabled crime.”

Other members of the gang were also sentenced. Hameed’s brother Nouman Choudhary, 22, acted as the accountant, investing money in properties in Scotland and Pakistan. Nouman was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for conspiracy to launder money. A confiscation hearing is set for 3 May 2017.

Abdul Iqbal, 23, of Edinburgh, was sentenced to 21 months for conspiracy to money launder. Hameed treated him as a butler or servant, but he received a £3,500 watch from the scheme and was present at Harrods when £70,000 was spent.

Syed Ali Amish, 24, of Luton, Bedfordshire, was sentenced to 32 months for conspiracy to launder money. Mohammed Mehtab, 35, of Watford, Hertfordshire, was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to launder money. He allowed more than £9,000 to go through his account. Syed Haider, 31, of Slough, Berkshire, and Bilal Ahmed, 26, of Ilford, east London, are due to be sentenced later. They have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money.