Crooks who stole £60,000 from elderly victims in Essex jailed

Aaron Leacock, 34, Warren Roache, 38, and Sean Lee, 40, made scam calls posing as the victims’ bank to swindle them out of the money.

All but one of their 47 victims was younger than 70 years old.

The gang targeted elderly people in Kent, Hampshire, Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire as well as neighbouring Essex and south London.

The tricksters phoned victims pretending to be their bank and would tell them a courier was coming to collect their card because of an problem with it.

The crooks would then ask bogus ‘security’ questions over the phone to give them a veneer of legitimacy but would in fact extract their sensitive personal details.

After collecting the cards, Roache and Lee withdrew large sums from cash machines or spent the money in shops near where victims lived.

Occasionally they would take the cards further away to near where the victims lived.

The fraudsters always called their victims on burner phones that they threw away after a few days.

While they all tried to escape police, cops were able to check their call log that showed victims were being contacted on Purely High Street in south London.

The leafy suburb was close to where Leacock, a man who had already served two prison sentences for similar crimes, rented an office.

Warren Roache was one of the people involved in the scam

Further analysis of phone data helped prove he made the phone calls to the victims.

CCTV near to many of the victims’ homes led to the number plate of Warren Roche’s car being uncovered.

It had been stopped by Sussex Police for an unrelated offence in October 2018.

A phone and sim card were found in his car which was later found to be connected to several of the fraudulent calls.

Messages on the phone also contained the names and addresses of several victims.

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Video footage was also gathered from shops where mobile phone top ups were purchased and the stolen cards used. Lee was snared several times buying these top ups or using a victim’s card.

Leacock and Roache were both arrested at their home addresses in March 2019, with no further offences taking place after this date.

Lee was arrested in August 2019 and all three suspects were charged in November 2020.

At Maidstone Crown Court on Friday (March 11), the trio all admitted conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

Aaron Leacock appeared in court for his role in the scam

Roache, from Orpington, south east London, was jailed for three years and two months after he admitted to 37 offences in the conspiracy.

Leacock, from Croydon, south London, was jailed for two years and three months after admitting being involved in all 47 offences in the fraud.

But he won’t serve a day behind bars for these latest crimes after a judge decided he will serve the time alongside a current five year-sentence for similar but unrelated cases.

In 2017 he was also jailed for 20 months for scamming £17,500 out of pensioners.

Lee, from South Norwood, south London, was spared jail and his 20-week sentence was suspended. He was behind 10 offences in the conspiracy, police said.

Detective Superintendent Patrick Milford, from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said : “These offenders systematically preyed on the elderly after they specifically identified them as being vulnerable.

“They caused a huge amount of distress to the victims, who were left feeling deceived and betrayed by people they believed they could trust. Their actions are completely deplorable.

“I am pleased that we were able to unravel the pattern of their criminality and secure justice for the victims.

“A custodial term is the only acceptable outcome and I am pleased they are now unable to target innocent members of the public “Although the victims of this particular case were elderly, these types of crime can impact anyone and knowing the tactics offenders like these men use can help you avoid losing money.

“Remember your bank, or the police, will never call and ask you for your full pin or full banking password, nor will they ask you to withdraw money and hand it over to a courier.

“The police will also never ask you to lie to your bank.

‘If you are unsure whether a call is genuine, ring them back using a trusted number on a different line to the one you were cold called on.

“If this option is not available, wait 10 minutes for your line to clear and ring a family member or friend to ensure that it has been cleared, as fraudsters have been known to keep a line open.”