Two fraudsters involved in an eBay scam tricked their victims into paying for vehicles that did not exist.
Some victims forked out thousands on seven vehicles, losing their savings in the scam and others had loaned money to buy the vehicles and one man lost an inheritance £8,000.
Purchases were made in good faith, having seen second-hand vehicles – two BMWs, a Peugeot, a Renault, a Vauxhall, a Range Rover Evoque and a VW Golf – advertised by two bogus motor car companies on eBay.
The victims arranged to buy the cars over the phone with someone they thought was a salesperson, who gave them details of the accounts to pay the money into.
The two men, Muaadh Sameja, 30, and Jay Raniga, 20, both from Leicester were said to have been recruited by the scam organisers to receive the cash into their accounts and pass it on.
Lynsey Knott, prosecuting at Leicester Crown Court said: “These two defendants, and others not before the court, were involved in offering vehicles for sale on eBay, which they didn’t deliver when customers parted with their money.
“The money was then moved out of the defendants’ accounts in cash and various transfers.”
Sameja, of Shanti Margh, Belgrave and Raniga, of Wainwright Avenue, Hamilton, admitted various counts involving a total of 14 offences between them – of fraud, possessing, converting and transferring criminal property, between January 2016 and April 2017.
Sentencing, Judge Philip Head said: “You two were a part of a group that was operating a sophisticated fraud.
“Bank accounts were provided by you two to receive payments and to pass on the money out of which your victims had been cheated.”
The judge said Raniga assisted in setting up one of the bogus companies used to advertise the vehicles and defraud unwitting purchasers.
He added: “Some victims were very hard hit by what happened.
“Some had borrowed the money and some couldn’t even admit (to loved ones) the loss your fraud inflicted upon them.
“They were well planned offences but your own personal part in that was comparatively low.”
He said one of the victims in his personal impact statement told the police: “I cannot bring myself to tell the person I borrowed the money from about what’s happened, it’s too devastating.”
Judge Head told the defendants: “It’s had a serious and detrimental effect on the victims.”
Earlier in the hearing he said: “These two defendants are money launderers and they each provided a financial conduit by which the dishonestly obtained cash was processed and fed on to others; in both cases that’s what they were doing.”
Matthew Cullen, mitigating, for Sameja said: “He wasn’t involved in the organising, other than knowing what the bank accounts were being set up were for.
“He accepts that greed got the better of rational thinking.
“The trigger for that was the financial difficulty he was in at the time.
“He was offered a quick fix for his money problems and that’s why he went along with it.
“He’s expressed genuine remorse.”
Michael Garvey, representing Raniga, said in mitigation: “He knew what was going on when someone wanted to use his bank account.
“The planning was very much out of his hands and he was working under someone else’s direction – he’s not pointing the finger at the man in the dock with him.
“It was a friend that got him involved.
“He didn’t know Mr Sameja until they met for the first time at court.
“He was 18 at the time and has no previous convictions.”
Sameja was given an 18 month jail sentence, suspended for two years.
He was ordered to attend a Thinking Skills course and placed on a four month electronically monitored curfew between 7pm and 6am.
Raniga was sentenced to a 59 week detention sentence, suspended for two years, with a 15 day rehabilitation activity requirement.
He will also have to carry out 140 hours of unpaid work.
