The mastermind behind an online fraud shop used to con victims out of more than £100million has been jailed for more than 13 years. Tejay Fletcher, 35, bought a £230,000 Lamborghini, two Range Rovers worth £110,000 and an £11,000 Rolex after making around £2 million from the iSpoof.cc website.
He was the founder and leading administrator of the site, which was brought down last year in the UK's biggest fraud sting. Criminals were offered tools that allowed them to disguise phone calls so they appeared to be from a trusted organisation, such as a bank, so they could empty their targets' accounts.
Victims around the world were defrauded of at least £100million, including a minimum of £43million from people in the UK, Southwark Crown Court was told. The website earned around £3.2million in cryptocurrency Bitcoin, with the "lion's share" of around £2million ending up with Fletcher, said prosecutor John Ojakovoh.
Fletcher last month pleaded guilty to four charges, including making or supplying an article for use in fraud, encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence, possession of criminal property and transferring criminal property, between November 30, 2020, and November 8, 2022.
Judge Sally Cahill KC jailed him for a total of 13 years and four months on Friday, telling him: "For all the victims it was a harrowing experience."
Judge Cahill said victims suffered damage to their businesses, personal financial problems, sleeplessness, depression, emotional stress and fallouts with family members.
She told Fletcher, who has 18 previous convictions for 36 offences, he "didn't care" about them, adding: "The late expression of remorse is regret for being caught rather than empathy for your victims."
Simon Baker KC, defending, had told the judge his client had no idea of the scale of the eventual fraud when he set up the website. But she told Fletcher: "As is the case with any successful business you probably didn't realise how successful and profitable your enterprise would be."
