Jailed: Brent fraudsters who ripped off online customers

Three online fraudsters from Park Royal have been jailed today for ripping off customers by taking their money and failing to deliver any goods.

Ionut Cotavian Anitescu, 26, and Dorel Grigorescu, 29, both of Shaftesbury Gardens, and Calin Serbenescu, 28, who is currently in Wormwood Scrubs Prison for another crime, placed advertisements selling a variety of goods and services including cars and family holidays on well known online marketplace sites.

Harrow Crown Court heard they also infiltrated the accounts of legitimate businesses and contacted their clients to request that payments be made into fraudulent accounts opened by them instead of the company’s legitimate bank account.

All three, who are Romanian nationals, formed part of a wider international criminal fraud network of which Serbenescu held a senior position within its banking function which netted more than £1million.

He organised people to open bank accounts using counterfeit documents and enable the use of the accounts to conduct fraudulent transactions.

Anitescu and Grigorescu were two of a number of willing ‘account openers’ working for Serbenescu who was the mastermind of their activities.

The trio laundered more than £350,000 made from the scam.

Serbenescu was jailed for five years, Anitescu was sentenced to three years and Grigorescu was given two.

All three admitted conspiracy to commit fraud

Detective Constable Chris Collins of Falcon, part of the Met’s Organised Crime Command, said: “These defendants form part of an international organised crime network.

“Their victims, who are many in number, paid money in good faith for goods and services that would never materialise. I hope that today’s sentences bring a measure of comfort to those victims.”