Couple grieving daughter dealt another devastating blow when police knock at their door

An elderly couple grieving their daughter realised they became the victims of a "wicked" banking scam leaving them £560,000 out of pocket when police showed up at their door.

The couple, in their 80s, told how they were further left devastated after falling victim to serial conman Azeem Mohammed, 33, who orchestrated scams from a swanky apartment in Salford, Greater . The wife received a call on her landline from a man saying someone had tried to order an Amazon Parcel that was meant to be delivered to Manchester for £600 and had attempted to pay using her Barclays bank account.

She then received a call from a man who posedinvestigator from the bank who went on to put her in touch with a "colleague" named Steven Cunningham - the identity has since been linked to Mohammed. After managing to gain her trust, he told her to install an app called Team Viewer on her computer.

But the act was all an attempt to gain access to the computer and, in turn, her bank accounts and email address.. The vile scammers then told her she needed to buy a new and to send it to them at an address in Glasgow, which she ended up doing.

When packages started to arrive at their home, including one containing gold bars, it was put to them that they were "ruses" and that they needed to be forwarded on. They opened three new accounts with the bank, all in her name but that she did not have access to, and transferred the couple's savings into them, the reported.

The victim was unaware what had been happening until police arrived at their home in June, 2023. Loans worth £563,000 were also taken out in their name with police and courts working to have them cancelled.

A heartbreaking victim impact statement from the woman and read to the court said: "Shocked is an understatement when I found out our life savings had been wiped out.

"I cannot think of printable words to describe what has happened to us. We were saving for our grandson. We lost our daughter three years ago to cancer and this was supposed to help his education. Our spending has been curtailed. We don't have the financial freedom we were supposed to have."

Mohammed and other organised criminals were behind scams against nine pensioners and others. Ultimately, they managed to trick them out of a staggering £1.5 million.

A widower, in his late 70s, whose wife died in 2022, lost £40,000 after being contacted by the criminals posing as Lloyds bank investigators.

After being told to install Team Viewer, the man realised he had been the victim of a crime. “It’s very seriously affected me. I was really shocked when I suddenly clicked late that afternoon that I’d been done…I’d been scammed," he said.

"I live on my own and I’m still coming to terms with the loss of my wife. And you don’t have somebody else around who you can say to 'I’ve had this strange phone call, what d'you think of it?'

"This has affected my basic confidence in dealing with people and dealing with third parties. It has really shaken me to the core how easily I was deceived and taken for a ride by these criminals. I’ve got over the anger but I haven’t got over the shock, I haven’t got over the fear and I feel that it’s gonna take a long time for me to get over this."

Another couple lost £143,000 after being tricked into opening new accounts where one where their cash was transferred into Euros. "For me, the sight of my wife transferring her savings to the fraudster believing that she was protecting her money will never leave me," the husband said. "I just feel that I’ve let her down by not seeing through the deception at the outset.

"This crime cruelly took away our self-generated financial cover and until some funds started being recovered by the bank, we felt utterly bereft, and this very negative scenario continues to this day."

Mohammed has a previous conviction for an almost identical case. He was part of an international organised crime gang that targeted elderly people in for which he was jailed in 2013. He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and defrauding nine victims between April 2021 and April 2024 to the tune of £958,949.

The court was also told the wider conspiracy raked in more than £1.5million. Judge Suzanne Goddard KC s and nine months on Thursday.

She told him: "This is the most sophisticated and complex banking fraud against individuals I have seen in my 38 years in the criminal law." She said the impact on the victims had been 'devastating', adding: "It is telling they have found the stoicism to carry on with their lives and make the best of things, despite the enormous financial loss they have suffered. It is perhaps a testament to the stoicism of people of their generation."