Jeremy Corbyn supported man accused of scamming elderly ahead of conviction
Jeremy Corbyn lent his support to a suspected fraudster who went on to be found guilty of his part in a £600,000 scam targeting frail pensioners.
The Labour leader's name was dropped by a defence lawyer in a bid to convince a judge to allow Mohamed Dahir, 23, to remain on bail despite being found guilty at the Old Bailey.
He was one of four men from north London to be convicted of involvement in the fraud against 18 elderly victims from across southern England with an average age of 83.
Dahir's barrister Patrick Harte told the court that Islington North MP Mr Corbyn had sent a letter in support of his original successful bail application in May saying that he had "roots in the area".
But Judge Anuja Dhir QC refused to continue bail, saying that now he had been found guilty there were significant grounds to believe he would fail to surrender.
She remanded all four defendants in custody ahead of sentencing on a date to be fixed in the new year.
Dahir, Shakaria Aden, 21, Yasser Abukar, 23, and Mohammed Abokar, 28, were found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud between May last year and May 2015. Ibrahim Farah, 23, was cleared of the same charge.
Abokar was convicted of converting criminal property - £9,000 belonging to Nanette Goldthorpe - on or around January 29 this year.
Prosecutor Kevin Dent said it was difficult to know how extensive the fraud was but at least £600,000 was taken from 18 victims.
The trial heard how the victims, aged in their 70s, 80s and 90s and from Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Bedfordshire, London and Kent, were phoned up 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.
The fake officer might say they had someone in custody who was caught attempting to use a cloned card in a high street store such as Argos.
Mr Dent told the jury: "Can you imagine your alarm on receiving a phone call like that from somebody purporting to be a police officer, saying there is fraud going on in your bank account?
"If you can imagine the alarm you might have, then think about the amount of alarm and distress to somebody considerably older than yourselves, perhaps less robust."
By 2015, the con had moved on to include informing victims there was an "inside job" involving counterfeit money, the court heard.
Mr Dent said the variety of "tricks" deployed by the conmen included playing on family ties.
One victim was told a grandchild was caught up in the fraud and co-operating with the police was the only way of sorting out that problem, Mr Dent said.
Time and again, the conmen would advise their victims to call 999 or their bank's fraud department to verify the details straight away, but they would not hang up so the elderly people would simply be reconnected.
The prosecutor told jurors: "It's very clever but something very simple and something that was used again and again. A really good con trick."
One victim, an 89-year-old woman, was conned into transferring £9,000 into the account of Abokar, who withdrew the cash and "almost immediately" took it into the Hippodrome Casino.
An elderly man lost £113,000 while another lady was tricked out of £130,000, the court heard.
Mr Dent said the fraudsters believed that once the money had been turned into cash it would then be "anonymous" and police would never be able to trace it back to the victims.
But the primary organiser of the fraud, who has already pleaded guilty, was found with a number of cash bands from the same bank branch as one of the victims, jurors were told.