A 35-year-old London man has been sentenced today to 13 years and 4 months in prison for his involvement in a major financial scam website.
Tejay Fletcher has been imprisoned for running the ‘iSpoof’ website which helped perpetrate financial frauds totalling £43m in the UK alone.
Mr Fletcher pleaded guilty to making or supplying articles for use in fraud, encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence, possessing criminal property and transferring criminal property.
He pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court on 20 April and was sentenced today.
The CPS said its probe into iSpoof was the largest fraud investigation ever to take place in the UK.
Mr Fletcher is believed to have made at least £1.3m from the racket. He was a leading administrator of ispoof.cc, described as an “online shop” which offered fraudsters the ability to subscribe to buy the tools they needed to carry out their criminal trade of conning victims such as ways to steal the personal details of victims, including financial details.
He spent the money on a string of luxury car purchases, including a £230,000 Lamborghini.
Kate Anderson, deputy chief crown prosecutor for the CPS, which brought the case, said: “This case is an excellent example of how we are prosecuting sophisticated criminals who attempt to hide behind anonymity online.
“Tejay Fletcher was a founder and administrator of iSpoof, a website which sold other fraudsters tools to deceive and scam thousands of victims in the UK and across the world. Through the website, criminals bought the services provided by Fletcher to commit fraud on an industrial scale, resulting in total losses of more than £43 million to victims in the UK alone.
“Fraud is not a victimless crime and the cost to the many victims in this case has not just been financial; it has also had a huge emotional impact, causing extreme distress and devastation to those affected – many of whom had their life savings stolen from them.”
She thanked the Metropolitan Police and other national and international law enforcement partners who worked with the CPS to secure the prosecution.
She said their support helped the CPS prove Mr Fletcher was instrumental in the setting up of the website.
The CPS will now be pursuing confiscation proceedings against Mr Fletcher to recover the money he made from his crimes.
Mr Fletcher, of Western Gateway, Docklands, London was described in court as a leading administrator of the ‘iSpoof’ website. The website provided fraudsters globally with services enabling them to ‘spoof’ or copy the details of banks such as Barclays, Santander, HSBC, Lloyds, Halifax, First Direct, NatWest, Nationwide and TSB or other trusted organisations.
Spoofing victims believe they are being contacted by their bank or another trusted organisation because the incoming number or email address looks familiar. But in fact the phone calls or contacts are being perpetrated by ‘spoofing’ fraudsters around the world posing as trusted financial organisations.
Fraudsters who paid a monthly subscriptions to iSpoof were provided with a variety of services, including the ability to use a caller ID ‘spoof’ to appear as if they were calling victims from a bank or other trusted organisation.
The amount received from users in iSpoof subscriptions and then paid out to Mr Fletcher and others linked to iSpoof was 112.6 Bitcoin (BTC), or approximately £3.2m. Europol says so far 142 suspects have been arrested around the world in connection with the scam with up to £100m defrauded worldwide.
• Anyone who believes they may have been a victim of fraud is urged to contact their bank immediately and report it to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or online.
