Fraudsters guilty of £600,000 pensioners scam

A gang of fraudsters have been found guilty of conning more than £600,000 from 18 frail pensioners with an average age of 83.

The victims, aged in their seventies, eighties and nineties and from Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Bedfordshire, London and Kent, were phoned by men posing as police officers investigating a fraud at their bank.

They were advised to transfer money or hand over cash for "safekeeping" - when in reality they were being ripped off.

Five young men from north London were on trial at the Old Bailey accused of playing a part in the plot to snare as many people as possible in 2014 and 2015.

Mohamed Dahir, 23, Shakaria Aden, 21, Yasser Abukar, 23, Ibrahim Farah, 23, and Mohammed Abokar, 28, denied conspiracy to commit fraud between May 2014 and May 2015.

Abokar denied a charge of converting criminal property - £9,000 belonging to Nanette Goldthorpe - on or around January 29 2015.

The jury deliberated for two days to find four of them guilty. Farah was cleared of wrongdoing.