A heartless fraudster who posed as a police officer to steal £27,000 of cash and jewellery from a pensioner’s home in an affluent Cheshire village has been jailed.
Sharmarke Ahmed, 34, from the Wandsworth area of London, pretended to be a cop when he phoned the victim, who is in her nineties, on her landline on March 5.
He said criminals had been operating in her area and if she had any money or jewellery at home, he would arrange for a ‘police officer’ to collect it to keep it safe.
The elderly lady told the crook she had £11,000 in cash and £16,000 worth of various ornaments at her home in the picturesque village of Malpas, near the Welsh border.
During the call, which lasted for several hours, a password was set up for her to use to verify the man coming to collect the items was ‘genuine’.
Ahmed then knocked on her door, posing as a detective from Chester, and gave the agreed codeword so she would hand over the items.
One of her friends reported the scam to Cheshire Police that evening – and an investigation into the ‘despicable’ criminal was swiftly launched.
And Ahmed has now been jailed for 28 months, at Chester Crown Court on October 23, after pleading guilty to handling stolen goods.
Sharmarke Ahmed (pictured), 34, from the Wandsworth area of London, pretended to be a police officer when he phoned the victim, who is in her nineties, on her landline on March 5
When investigators initially tried to trace the number that phoned the pensioner, they found it was withheld, with no caller ID available.
But further checks revealed the call had come from a kind of burner phone, with a pay-as-you-go number that had only gone live on the day he rung her.
Detectives traced it back to the Brixton area of London and found it had also travelled from London to Malpas on March 5.
Ahmed was then spotted on CCTV collecting the victim’s cash and jewellery.
He also matched the description of a man seen on security footage at Chester Bus Station that evening, boarding a coach back to London.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police then arrested the fraudster in the capital on April 1.
Detective Constable Niall Dudley said: ‘Anyone can fall victim to courier fraud and sadly we have seen many incidents of this nature in the Cheshire area.
‘We all react very differently under duress and this is what these despicable criminals take advantage of.
‘I am grateful that Ahmed has been jailed for his role in such an awful scam, targeting a vulnerable individual and preying on their good nature.
‘But he underestimated the dedication of our officers in locating him, tracing him all the way to London where he was ultimately arrested.’
Ahmed’s crimes were an example of courier fraud, the most common type of telephone fraud in Britain.
It sees scammers phone victims and claim to be either from their bank, the police or some other kind of law enforcement agency.
They then most often con their target into revealing their PIN and credit or debit card details.
In fact, Cheshire Police received several other calls about courier frauds from March 5 to March 7 alone, the few days when Ahmed committed his crimes.
DC Dudley concluded: ‘Ahmed was just one piece of the puzzle and our fight against this type of crime is not over.’
The officer urged anyone in the area who believes they have been a victim of courier fraud to call Cheshire Police on 101.
They should use a different phone to the one used to communicate with the fraudsters.
People can also report information to detectives via the force’s online form.
The detective added: ‘Call 999 immediately in an emergency or if you suspect a fraud is currently in progress. Do not wait to report the fraud to police.
‘The quicker police are told, the more likely officers can identify those responsible.’