Multi-million pound charity rip-off gang in Swindon jailed

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/1 ... on_jailed/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A GANG of fraudsters has been jailed for ripping off some of the country’s biggest charities in a multi-million pound scam.

Richard Badger, Mark Barclay, Katie Dixon and Christopher Horgan conned organisations including the RSPCA.

They secured mailing contracts for distributing post, but destroyed half of the letters – amounting to more than 175 Post Office cages.

They managed to secure these contracts by falsely claiming they could provide the services for a cheaper rate than Royal Mail. More than 1.3 million mailings and letters were destroyed while the gang lied they had been sent.


At Winchester Crown Court yesterday, Badger, 43, of Firecrest View, Dorcan, Swindon, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for theft and money laundering.

Barclay, 38, of Spine Road East, South Cerney, was sentenced to three years nine months for running a fraudulent business and money laundering, three months for possession of a class A drug, one month for possession of a class B drug and two months for two counts of possession of a section one firearm.

Dixon, 27, of Winterbourne Road, Swindon, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment suspended for two years and 150 hours of unpaid work for running a fraudulent business and money laundering.

Horgan, 48, of Ferndale Road, Swindon, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for money laundering.

All four were banned from being company directors for seven years.

Det Insp Mike Rees, head of the dedicated crime team, said: “This was a complex fraud which targeted organisations that rely on the generosity of members of the public through the mail they send out.

“By intercepting and destroying this mail, these individuals have denied these charities millions of pounds in potential funds which, in turn, would have helped those most in need.

“These fraudsters led extravagant lifestyles off the back of ripping off these charities with trips abroad and buying luxury items.

“We can only really estimate the total financial damage this has caused these charities as it would be impossible to say how much funding they might have received if these items had been posted out as they should.

“We know that the companies paid this fraudulent mailing company more than £685,000 in total but the loss to the charities involved would have run into millions in potential donations.

“This was a callous crime born of out of pure greed and today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of these crimes.”

Anyone wishing to report a crime should call 101.

[SP115]

arseholes.

[Wessex]

They could have got Royal Mail to deliver them as DSA and still made a nice sum

[DGP1]

I wondered how long it would take for a criminal to figure out that they could make money by taking peoples mail and just not delivering it, for a few pounds to get a licence, renting an empty warehouse and the willingness to defraud the customers you can make a fair bit of money in a very short time (remembering that they wouldn't be paying the rent on buildings/vehicles).

[La Poste]

With DSA the mail is often delivered to mail centres like Jubilee mail centre where often no checks (allegedly) are done on it at all IE the mail volumes are not checked against the paperwork, the paperwork will say 10,000 items have been posted when only 5000 have been posted.

The mail is then accepted by the mail centre and when certain items are not delivered the mailing house will sue royal mail for non delivery.

In the old days when everything went through an RDC there were/are special teams called mail verification that check the volumes of mail to make sure what is being posted is correct but with mail going straight into mail centres these checks are not (allegedly) being carried out properly.

This opens up the risk of Royal mail being sued for non delivery and as far as I know it does happen and quite frequently.

[Lounge Lizard]

"Richard Badger conned the RSPCA"

[Lounge Lizard]

With DSA the mail is often delivered to mail centres like Jubilee mail centre where often no checks (allegedly) are done on it at all IE the mail volumes are not checked against the paperwork, the paperwork will say 10,000 items have been posted when only 5000 have been posted.

The mail is then accepted by the mail centre and when certain items are not delivered the mailing house will sue royal mail for non delivery.

In the old days when everything went through an RDC there were/are special teams called mail verification that check the volumes of mail to make sure what is being posted is correct but with mail going straight into mail centres these checks are not (allegedly) being carried out properly.

This opens up the risk of Royal mail being sued for non delivery and as far as I know it does happen and quite frequently.

But did these conmen get paid by the charities and then pass on fewer letters to the DSA company, consequently pay them less and so fraudulently pocket the difference ?

[La Poste]

But did these conmen get paid by the charities and then pass on fewer letters to the DSA company, consequently pay them less and so fraudulently pocket the difference ?

It's a great con if you can get away with it.
The charity pays for the full amount to be posted, the paperwork goes into Royal mail saying the full amount has been posted the conmen instruct the DSA company to prepare half the letters, half the letters get posted through Royal mail.
The conmen then sue Royal mail for letters that were undelivered, letters that according to the paperwork were posted and accepted by Royal mail but were in actual fact never given to Royal mail in the first place.
The conmen win twice because things are not getting checked properly at the point of entry into the business.
Royal mail should start to invest more in mail verification but I won't hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

[fishtank]

This was a callous crime born of out of pure greed

It has to be said,partly by the charities themselves.
Maybe not greed as such but certainly naivety and a desperation to cut costs that doesn't seem to apply to their highly paid bosses.
There is a saying that if a deal sounds too good to be true that's usually because it is and if they had been willing to pay a well known and trusted brand like Royal Mail the going rate they wouldn't have been scammed.
I have very little sympathy.

[Lounge Lizard]

But did these conmen get paid by the charities and then pass on fewer letters to the DSA company, consequently pay them less and so fraudulently pocket the difference ?

It's a great con if you can get away with it.
The charity pays for the full amount to be posted, the paperwork goes into Royal mail saying the full amount has been posted the conmen instruct the DSA company to prepare half the letters, half the letters get posted through Royal mail.
The conmen then sue Royal mail for letters that were undelivered, letters that according to the paperwork were posted and accepted by Royal mail but were in actual fact never given to Royal mail in the first place.
The conmen win twice because things are not getting checked properly at the point of entry into the business.
Royal mail should start to invest more in mail verification but I won't hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

Are you sure ?
You say that "The charity pays for the full amount to be posted, the paperwork goes into Royal mail" but surely the charity deals only with these conmen, not with Royal Mail and not even with the DSA company.
The charity gives the work to and has a contract with the conmen.
The conmen gives the circulars to and has a contract with the DSA company.
The DSA company passes them for delivery to and has a contract with the conmen.
The conmen would probably get away with it except that the chatities would be likely to notice little or no response to certain appeals or from certain areas in which case their first enquiry, if not direct to the police, would be to who they have the contract with i.e. the conmen, who no doubt would try blaming the DSA company or Royal Mail.

[La Poste]

The paperwork is a statement of how many items have been posted with a total amount for that posting.
Royal mail will supply software to whoever is in charge of the posting.
This software will calculate a figure for the cost of the posting based on the number of items posted and any relevant discounts for volumes posted etc.
This paperwork can be completely controlled by the conmen.

The DSA company will just be a mailing house and they will be instructed to put letters into envelopes and add all the envelopes into bags with tickets on them to direct each bag to a certain mail centre.
The Charity will get a copy of the paperwork, the Bill if you like so they can see how much the cost is.
The conmen will instruct the DSA company to process (just for an example) 50% of the mail that the charity has entrusted them to do and charge the charity for 100% of the work.

The part of the plan that is hazy and I admit it will be charging Royal mail compensation for undelivered mail.
The conmen could say it was posted and Royal mail have not delivered it and then try to sue Royal mail for compensation.
I guess the compensation will have to go to the charity as they will be fully aware that certain items have not been delivered and they will have to decide if it was the conmen responsible or Royal mail, the conmen will obviously blame Royal mail or possibly the DSA company.

The point is if Royal mail accept a posting from a DSA company and there are only 50000 items posted when the paperwork says 100000 then Royal mail are immediately liable for a compensation claim because the fault with the mail was not spotted at the point of entry into the business.
Royal mail will immediately be on the back foot because they will have to prove that only 50000 items were posted which will be impossible once the mail has entered the system.

They will have to prove they are not liable for non delivery, they will have to show that the mail did not get lost in their system which will be hard because the mail has been and gone by the time a compensation claim is put in, it could be months after the initial posting took place.

I'm not 100% sure how the system works but I am fairly sure this is how it works.
There are two ways of conning the Royal mail, one is by posting more items than you say you are posting obviously you will get a lot of items posted free but the other con which is not so widely known is posting too few items and going after Royal mail for compensation.
Royal mail really needs to get on top of this and start checking mail volumes properly as they enter the network.

[PhilthyPhil]

I thought there was no compensation for DSA because it is impossible to determine who has 'lost' it.

[La Poste]

Now that's a new one on me, I shall see if I can find out.

[Lounge Lizard]

The paperwork is a statement of how many items have been posted with a total amount for that posting.
Royal mail will supply software to whoever is in charge of the posting.
This software will calculate a figure for the cost of the posting based on the number of items posted and any relevant discounts for volumes posted etc.
This paperwork can be completely controlled by the conmen.

The DSA company will just be a mailing house and they will be instructed to put letters into envelopes and add all the envelopes into bags with tickets on them to direct each bag to a certain mail centre.
The Charity will get a copy of the paperwork, the Bill if you like so they can see how much the cost is.
The conmen will instruct the DSA company to process (just for an example) 50% of the mail that the charity has entrusted them to do and charge the charity for 100% of the work.

The part of the plan that is hazy and I admit it will be charging Royal mail compensation for undelivered mail.
The conmen could say it was posted and Royal mail have not delivered it and then try to sue Royal mail for compensation.
I guess the compensation will have to go to the charity as they will be fully aware that certain items have not been delivered and they will have to decide if it was the conmen responsible or Royal mail, the conmen will obviously blame Royal mail or possibly the DSA company.

The point is if Royal mail accept a posting from a DSA company and there are only 50000 items posted when the paperwork says 100000 then Royal mail are immediately liable for a compensation claim because the fault with the mail was not spotted at the point of entry into the business.
Royal mail will immediately be on the back foot because they will have to prove that only 50000 items were posted which will be impossible once the mail has entered the system.

They will have to prove they are not liable for non delivery, they will have to show that the mail did not get lost in their system which will be hard because the mail has been and gone by the time a compensation claim is put in, it could be months after the initial posting took place.

I'm not 100% sure how the system works but I am fairly sure this is how it works.
There are two ways of conning the Royal mail, one is by posting more items than you say you are posting obviously you will get a lot of items posted free but the other con which is not so widely known is posting too few items and going after Royal mail for compensation.
Royal mail really needs to get on top of this and start checking mail volumes properly as they enter the network.

Thanks, complicated, but you obviously know more about this than me.
It was never a problem for charities when they got volunteers to deliver begging letters or paid Royal mail to do so, but trying to do it on the cheap, conmen, DSA companies or even Door To Doors and gone is the certainty that near 100% will get delivered.