It doesn’t matter whether you’re a celebrity, an average person, or an average business,
scammers such as this guy can still get to you in the smartest yet simple ways!
We’ll discuss later how Helen Skeleton was scammed and how Feezan Hameed Choudhary ran
his massive scam, but let’s first discuss:
3 - Pension on Fire New Zealander Catherine Mullaley thought she
was investing her $325,000 New Zealand Dollars retirement savings with a well-known bank.
Instead?
It was shuttled overseas in a scam that even fooled the legitimate bank workers who helped
her transfer her money!
Catherine had big plans for her hard-earned retirement funds.
Her husband had recently just become disabled, so he’s been unable to work.
So she wanted to invest some of her money into a life insurance plan that would benefit
their young daughter Eva.
Catherine also had plans to buy a new house to replace their house that had been falling
apart.
She had planned to use some of the money as a down payment.
She then simply wanted to invest the rest of the money in something safe.
That’s when the phone call came.
She had been looking up some investment opportunities online before receiving a phone call from
someone who claimed to work for Citibank.
The supposed Citibank employee then gave her a website that provided legitimate-looking
paperwork and contact details for the Citibank closest to her in Auckland, New Zealand.
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Now, let’s get back to this unfortunate story where Catherine just printed out the
paperwork!
Transferred
Catherine then went in person to the closest branch of her bank, the Bank of New Zealand.
The scammer had sent Catherine paperwork that looked so legitimate, it was enough to fool
even the Bank of New Zealand employees who assisted her with the transfer of money to
the scammer’s bank account!
Catherine had proof that a bank employee helped her right on a tablet at the bank.
The Bank of New Zealand staff completed the transfer of $325,000 New Zealand Dollars to
her supposed new Citibank account, with zero questions asked.
But things took a turn for the worse when the scammer called Catherine saying the wire
hadn’t shown up, despite her bank account showing empty.
Devastated
So then she called her bank and asked what happened if her money wasn’t at Citibank!
And that’s when Catherine found out the official bad news of her falling for a scam.
Catherine understandably was shocked and had a breakdown at work.
The recipient account turned out to be a legitimate business account in Australia.
But it had just been taken over by scammers.
Catherine’s bank was only able to retrieve roughly $67,000 new zealand dollars.
But the rest of the money that took her over 15 years of service in the London Fire Brigade
to make was lost.
BNZ Issues
The Bank of New Zealand basically avoided admitting any fault for Catherine getting
scammed.
They described the scam as sophisticated and elaborate, but they added that they didn’t
think they could have done anything more to prevent Catherine from losing her retirement
savings to the scammers.
But Catherine said that if they had simply called the Citibank branch in Auckland to
check the account number, the scam would never have happened.
Unfortunately for Catherine, her husband still can’t work, and she’s not any closer to
recovering her retirement money.
However, she’s started a gofundme page, which we’ll link in the description below
to hopefully help out Catherine!
2 - Just a Few Questions What sounded like a legitimate cell phone
call from Helen’s bank ended up being a scam that cost Helen Skelton £70,000 pounds!
Helen Skelton is an English television presenter and actress who rose to fame as the host of
children’s program Blue Peter and has been a presenter on Countryfile since 2014.
Her fame grew after she had gotten married and had two children with England rugby league
player Richie Myler.
Being famous still won’t stop scammers!
Phone Call
While walking her dogs and her two sons, Skelton received a call she later described as quote,
“dodgy.”
The call came from a man claiming to be a representative from her bank, and that something
was going on with her account.
And that’s when Skelton passed on very compromising information about her account to the scammer.
What made it worse was that she was dealing with her kids and dog, so it was quite a frantic
moment for her.
Catching her at the right time was what allowed this lucky scammer to make off with £70,000
pounds of her money.
Skelton spoke about her experience on the British television program “Lorraine”
back in 2019.
Helen was quite traumatized about the entire experience and admitted to crying about the
scam.
She went on Lorraine just to show people that a scam can happen to anyone at any time, and
to not be embarrassed about getting scammed since it’s much more common than most people
think.
Typical
The techniques used on Skeleton are common tactics of what are called “cold call”
scammers, Basically they call and try to convince their targets that they’ve already fallen
for a scam.
Then they offer to help them over the phone, and that’s when the real scam happens!
Cold call scammers also often pose as police officers or bank staff and relay (untrue)
news of a fraudulent payment on a victim’s card.
They then offer to collect the victim’s old card using a courier, obtaining the victim’s
address.
The scammers offer to send a replacement card, which of course, never arrives.
1 - Cold Call King Feezan Hameed Choudhary pulled off one of
the most elaborate cyber scams ever seen by the UK police!
Part of Choudary’s success came from his ability to take on a wide variety of accents.
He put on Scottish, Welsh and “posh” English accents whenever he called up his targets.
His victims described him as having a lot of knowledge and although he talked really
fast, apparently he was really soothing to them as well!
His smooth voice along with his strong and convincing personality made his scams that
much easy to buy into.
That explains how he was able to scam a total of 750 victims out of 113 million pounds,
something he got a 11 year sentence for back in September 2016.
Choudhary and his partners posed as anti-fraud team members, making calls to Royal Bank of
Scotland and Lloyds of London banking customers.
The Scam
Choudary basically would call up the clients and quickly let them know that they supposedly
had been hacked.
And that’s when the actual scam would begin.
The unsuspecting callers would then simply share their account details and then Choudhary
had his team in place to hit their targets for whatever money they could get.
His crew included crooked bank employees, such as sisters Emma and Amy Darmola, who
were both Lloyds of London banking employees.
The sisters would get the banking details and then immediately transfer whatever money
they could to burner bank accounts.
Choudhary then had another team in place who would withdraw the cash from local bank branches
and ATMs as soon as they could.
Choudhary was also able to stop his customers from getting phone calls for any fraud alerts,
since he knew their phone number!
And it wasn’t JUST the average person who’d fall for this scam either.
Entire businesses fell for his scam as well!
London law firm Pitman Blackstock was scammed out of roughly 2.6 million pounds after getting
a call from Choudhary claiming to be a security team member from Lloyds Bank.
The Lifestyle
As Choudhary’s scam grew, so did his wealth.
At the height of his scam he was stealing more than three million pounds a month according
to investigators.
What else is there for a scammer to do with their money other than spend it?!
He loved his cars, and he bought lots of them.
The cars he bought included Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Mercedes Benz G Wagons, and Porches.
He was so obsessed over his collection of cars, according to investigators, he once
flew car detailers 8,000 miles from Scotland to Pakistan just to work on his fleet of Porsches
parked outside his villa.
This was a villa he claimed he didn’t have, but his family clearly lived there along with
a full team of servants, butlers and cooks.
Hilariously, Choudary tried to cover up his wealth by lying in court saying that his family
lived in a 2 bedroom apartment that cost a hundred ninety one pounds a month to rent.
But cars weren’t the only decadent purchases.
Choudhary also loved to shop for clothes on elaborate spending sprees!
Investigators found that he spent an estimated £3 million pounds at Harrods, a high-end
London department store.
Just how much did Choudhary like shopping?
During their investigation, police gathered sound surveillance footage of Choudary on
a Facetime call with one of his accomplices so he could buy luxury clothing over the phone!
Choudary also hired Pakistani pop star Bilal Saeed to perform at his engagement party.
He also expertly hid his money by having friends and family by property in their names for
him.
His family apparently did a great job.
Prosecutors were able to prove 19 million pounds were from scams performed by Choudhary
and his team, despite a total of 113 million pounds scammed.
The Aftermath
Choudhary’s luxurious lifestyle came to a screeching halt when he was arrested after
trying to board a flight from Paris to Pakistan with a fake passport in November 2015.
Time was up for his crew, as well.
Choudhary’s younger brother, Norman Choudhary, served as the team’s “accountant.”
Norman Choudhary was sent away for three and a half years after attempting to launder some
of the cash through property investments in Scotland and Pakistan.
Emma and Amy Daramola pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit fraud, and they both got 2 years
for their role, although their sentence was suspended for some reason.
16 other gang members were sentenced, as well.
Choudhary and his brother couldn’t let go of the scamming game, even while serving time.
The two ended up sharing a jail cell and went right back to work, making an estimated 40
scam calls before they were busted again, right in prison!
For that, they received an extra two and a half more years added right on to their sentence!
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