Olympic Landbanking Scam You've Been Scammed



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Millions of us are targeted in scams every year, and whether it comes

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in the form of an e-mail, a cold call or a knock at the door,

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they're all designed to do one thing and one thing only -

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to get you to part with your cash.

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Coming up, the Olympic-themed investment

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where the only winners were the conmen.

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To realise that someone can do that to you and can destroy your life...

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Plus, we look at a heartless schemer who exploited

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a position of trust.

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There was no limit to what she was willing to do or say

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in terms of being able to pull off this fraud.

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Well, I'm here to tell you what the conman doesn't want you to know.

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How to stay one step ahead of the game and not get scammed.

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Now, if you're lucky enough to come into a bit of unexpected cash,

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you've basically got two choices.

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You can either go out and spend, spend, spend,

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or if you're being prudent, you could invest it.

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Conventional wisdom has it

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that there are few investments as good as land.

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Not all land investments are what they seem.

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And that's certainly true in an investment known as land banking.

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Although it can exist as a legitimate business,

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in recent years,

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organisations like the Financial Services Authority

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have witnessed a huge rise in land banking scams.

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Land banking essentially involves a firm buying a large plot of land

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and splitting it into dozens, probably, of smaller plots,

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and then selling those plots with the promise that one day,

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it will get planning permission.

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So, in other words, you buy land while it's cheap and then,

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when planning permission is granted and it rockets in value,

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you reap the rewards. If only it was as simple as that.

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Land banking scams have taken millions off people

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in the last few years,

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and I'm about to meet one of them.

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Alison Higginson is a care worker and single mother of two,

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and like most people,

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she's had to work hard to stay on top of her family finances.

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But last year, Alison thought any money worries were behind her

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when she won a five-figure sum playing bingo.

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-Hello, I'm Matt.

-Oh, hi, Matt. Come in.

-Thank you.

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-So you got a cheque through the post, is that how it works?

-Yeah.

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What was that like?

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It was the most amazing feeling, it really was.

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I'd never won any kind of money,

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so when I won that, the feeling it gave me was absolutely amazing.

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But Alison kept her feet on the ground.

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After all, here was an opportunity to have a bit of financial security.

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I needed to make this money work for me, so I thought about investing it.

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Now, as luck would have it, Alison had only recently

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been contacted by a land banking firm called Regional Land,

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the trading name of Countrywide Land Holdings Ltd.

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With no money to invest, Alison had said, thanks, but no thanks,

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and thought no more about it.

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But with a sizeable bingo prize sat in her account,

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things were suddenly different, so when Regional Land called her back,

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this time she listened to what they had to say.

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They were offering the chance for a development site

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that was close to the Olympics.

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They were saying this land is prime, it's perfect land to develop.

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The man on the line had grabbed Alison's attention,

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but what she didn't know was that he was a conman

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who was simply using the Olympics as a way of hooking her in.

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The reason why they'll use a hook like the Olympics,

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or any other type of hook,

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is because it translates the theory of how you might make money

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into something that sounds real life,

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and it sounds realistic that they may well be

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a regeneration of housing in that area.

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It just makes it sound real, and once it sounds real,

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you're more likely to get the victim.

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The Olympics was the best part about it, because it was like,

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we know thousands of people are going to want to stream into London.

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Everything he said was completely feasible.

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The language these people use is very positive and very optimistic.

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They will give you a nigh-on certain feeling

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that you are definitely going to see this land get planning permission

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and then make massive amounts of money.

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There was nothing about it that led me to believe

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that there was anything wrong with the idea.

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Alison felt this was the perfect opportunity

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to use her win from bingo wisely.

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I thought it would give me a better income

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in a maximum of five years' time.

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I would've had a nice, tidy sum of money.

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One of the things you're told is the possible returns are massive.

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They are promising you that when it gets planning permission,

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an area of land you bought for £10,000

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will be worth £200,000 with planning permission.

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Tell me about the kind of returns they were offering on your money.

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What were you going to get back for investing?

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To start off with, I'd get about three times my investment,

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once they'd got planning permission,

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and then if I wanted, I could then sell at that point.

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But it wasn't just promises of high returns that lured Alison in.

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She was also building up what she thought was a close relationship

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with the voice on the phone.

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You have somebody who befriends you, offers to give you advice,

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seems very benevolent and wants to look after you,

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look after your financial situation.

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I'm getting to know him.

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We were talking about absolutely everything, what he's been up to,

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what I've been up to, so it's all things that alleviate my fear.

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He feels real on the end of the phone, and not just a voice.

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Although Alison was interested in what they had to offer,

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she wanted to think about it.

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Regional Land, though, bombarded her with glossy brochures,

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official-looking documents, and, of course, they kept on phoning,

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hoping they could pressurise her into a decision.

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That's why you're getting the phone calls, over and over again,

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to force you to make that decision, even though,

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if you stopped a minute to think, you'd realise what was going on.

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But you're not allowed that time.

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I can see that, yeah, I can understand that.

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Then using a classic scam-artist trick to up the urgency,

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they told her she was too late and had missed the boat.

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There was no plots left on the Olympic land.

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They were offering me a deal in Kent.

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Alison was told the plots in Kent

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were big enough for a three-bedroomed house,

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and this time, she wasn't going to miss out.

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She agreed to buy a plot for £12,000.

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But the company wasn't done with her yet.

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They began to ramp up the pressure even more.

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I was getting phone calls morning, afternoon, evening, constant.

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It got to the point where, at one point,

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I was refusing to actually answer my phone,

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and that would be to anyone, just in case it was them.

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The company sensed Alison had more to invest

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and they were going to try every tactic possible

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to get more of her cash.

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The second route they'll use is to try and encourage them

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to make more money, more quickly,

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still with the promise that they'll get massive returns.

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You decide to invest more? How did that happen?

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The second investment was based on the fact

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that they had a piece of land that was so close to being developed,

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we're talking in terms of months, not years,

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so I could get my return back within six to nine months.

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Not only did they offer me

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this bit of land that was ready to be developed,

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but they also offered me it at a reduced price

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than what they were asking from other investors.

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This so-called exclusive offer and the constant bombardment of calls

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eventually paid off for the conmen.

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Alison was persuaded to hand over another £15,000

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for the second piece of land.

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As soon as I made the second payment, I knew.

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Suddenly, it did dawn on me that something wasn't right.

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How did you know?

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I constantly tried to contact them, I couldn't get through to them,

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or if I got through to them,

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I couldn't speak to the person that was actually dealing with me.

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He would be not around, he wasn't in the office or things like that.

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I'd ask for phone calls, nobody would return my calls.

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Eventually, Alison did hear back from the company,

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but all she got was a sob story.

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Someone contacts me back and basically tells me that

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they're very sorry,

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but this guy has just lost his wife to a brain haemorrhage

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and he has to bring up his four-year-old daughter,

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can I please not contact them.

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In Alison's case there, they were using the usual diversion tactics.

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Once they're rumbled, if you like, they can string people along

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with stories like the broker's wife has died or whatever,

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then it's less likely that these schemes

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will get reported to the authorities,

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and it keeps the scheme alive for them to sell to other victims.

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Now seriously concerned, Alison decided to contact a solicitor

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to find out exactly what she'd bought.

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He told her the land she'd purchased did exist,

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but it was a far cry from what she'd imagined.

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What he did turn round and say to me

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was that the size of land I actually had bought

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was probably big enough for a shed.

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There was no way you could build a three-bedroomed house on it.

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It was also highly unlikely

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the land would ever be granted planning permission,

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meaning the plots Alison had paid a total of £27,000 for

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were actually worth just a few hundred quid.

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And Regional Land had disappeared without a trace.

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Worse still, conmen continue to hound Alison with similar schemes,

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selling everything from carbon credit to wine.

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She believes her name is now on a suckers list

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where her details are stored by scammers.

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It also feels like it's the same people as well,

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because with the land banking,

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the people that contacted me had a distinct accent.

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When I was contacted with regards to the carbon credits

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and another one that was recently, it sounded like the same guy.

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We do see the same people running lots of different types of scams.

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They're based on the same thing, which is buy something, an asset,

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which will rapidly go up in value, and it's often an illusion,

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and it usually ends up with the victim losing all their money.

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What effect did this have on you?

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Initially, I was angry that I'd been so gullible, was how I felt.

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After, I became really upset,

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and when I realised that I'd been taken in, I felt really bad

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because there's so many things I could have done with that money.

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There is a little bit of good news for Alison

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and others caught up in land banking scams.

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In March 2012, the High Court ruled

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that the man behind Regional Land and Countrywide Land Holdings Ltd,

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James Kenneth Maynard, had been selling land unlawfully.

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He was ordered to pay a whopping £32 million to the FSA.

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Sadly, he's now on the run,

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and people like Alison must come to terms with the fact

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that their money is gone.

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Since all of this, I haven't worked,

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I haven't really stepped foot outside my house.

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Why?

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Because I realised that so much bad happens out in the world,

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I just figured I was safer if I stayed in my own home.

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-That's tragic, really.

-It's sad.

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You're someone that's given a lot in your job,

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and to your family as well.

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You know, you can't earn your living,

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you can't have a social life and friends, as a result of this.

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No, I haven't, for the past few years. I haven't had any life.

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None whatsoever.

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But they've taken a lot more away from you than just money, then.

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That isn't the biggest part of these kind of scams.

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The biggest part is what it does to you as a person,

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to realise that someone can do that to you, and can destroy your life.

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It has destroyed my life, effectively.

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I'm really conscious of how much courage it takes

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to come and tell this story, and how you must feel embarrassed, ashamed,

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of all of these things,

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but you mustn't do, because it's not just you.

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There are hundreds of people who've been in the same situation,

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and very few of them have the guts to talk about it.

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If you're contacted with a view to investing in land,

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here's what you need to watch out for.

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The first thing that happens is that you get a cold call out of the blue.

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It's rarely a good idea to do business with cold callers,

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but if what they're offering sounds interesting,

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go away and do your own research

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to ensure everything is above board and legitimate.

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Second hallmark is that they befriend you,

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they start talking to you about your investment, your financial health,

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they'll seem like they actually care about you.

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Don't be taken in by this. They're not interested in you.

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They're just after your money.

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The third hallmark is that they start to then

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move into talking about land-based investments,

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and how you could make a lot of money out of them.

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Get a solicitor involved and check with the local council

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about the likelihood of planning permission,

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because there's a good chance

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the only ones set to make any money out of this are the conmen.

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Putting your affairs in order gets more important as you get older.

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You want to make sure that what you've got

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goes to the people you love after you've gone,

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but that process can also present a golden opportunity for scam artists.

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And in 2009, Derbyshire Police uncovered details of a scam

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that had ruthlessly targeted elderly residents of a care home.

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It's one of the worst cases of dishonesty I've ever come across.

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The case revolved around a care home manager,

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who, it seemed, had exploited her position

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to try and get at the residents' cash.

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There was no limit, really, to what she was willing to do or say,

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in terms of being able to pull off this fraud.

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The police were called in by Terry Mansfield

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after his elderly cousin Geoff passed away.

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Terry's suspicions were aroused

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when it emerged that Jeff had left a large part of his estate

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to someone he didn't actually like.

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I was amazed that he would have left 40% of his estate

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to somebody whom he clearly disliked.

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That someone turn out to be Beverly Jeffs,

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the manager of the care home where he'd lived

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for the last three years of his life.

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Geoff didn't like her. He used to speak of her as the tyrant.

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Beverly Jeffs had only come into Geoff's life in the last few years.

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During his lifetime, Geoff was an extremely bright man

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and had enjoyed an illustrious career.

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He spent the whole of his career in Rolls-Royce,

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and retired at a normal age

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when he was known as principal performance engineer.

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Having worked so hard all his life,

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Jeff left a sizeable estate worth almost £750,000.

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When Terry was presented with a copy of the will from Beverly Jeffs,

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things didn't add up.

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It was a handwritten will

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and I was concerned about whether it was valid or not

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because there were some peculiarities about it.

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I was surprised about the grammatical errors in the will,

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and misplaced apostrophes, misspellings and so on.

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Now, for a precision engineer, that just didn't seem right.

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Terry smelt a rat,

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and with Beverly Jeffs set to inherit nearly £3,000,

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he decided to contact a solicitor.

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The solicitor went to the police

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when we had suspicions about six or seven weeks after my cousin's death.

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The case landed on the desk of Detective Constable Hardip Shergill

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of the Derbyshire force.

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The first knowledge really came from relatives

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of the deceased victim.

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Firstly, the family weren't happy

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that the will was authentic or genuine.

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Secondly, there were some transactions

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on the victim's bank account,

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and these were quite significant transactions,

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and they were completely out of character.

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Now, Geoff Mansfield was not renowned for his extravagant ways,

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so a cheque written for £22,000 from his own cheque-book

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raised alarm bells.

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What unfolded next was more shocking than Terry ever could have imagined.

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The solicitor rang to tell me

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about the withdrawals from his account by these cheques,

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and she told me that one of them, for £22,000, had been to Mercedes-Benz.

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Why would an elderly man living in a care home

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write a cheque for so much money?

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I said, "Oh, that's very interesting in view of the fact

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"that Mrs Jeffs drives around in a Mercedes."

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She said, "That's not the only thing,

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"you should see what's written on the back."

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It has a car number plate recorded,

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and it is the personalised number plate of Beverly Jeffs.

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Geoff had mentioned the car to his cousin.

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He couldn't understand how she got the money

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to drive around in a posh car like that.

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The Mercedes Benz was in fact a car that she'd purchased,

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and she used a cheque from his account to pay that off.

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Signed it, as though Geoff had signed it.

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Beverly Jeffs had been swanning around in a luxury car

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paid for by Geoff Mansfield.

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The sheer gall!

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And an act of astonishing brazenness was to follow.

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She did come to his funeral in that car.

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Although her guilt seemed glaringly obvious,

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police needed hard evidence to back up their suspicions.

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Handwriting analysis on the signatures on the cheques

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was carried out to clarify if they were genuine.

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We got samples of Geoff Mansfield's signature

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going back from the 1970s to late 1990s,

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compared those signatures

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with those that were on these fraudulent cheques,

0:19:260:19:29

and the expert was able to say

0:19:290:19:31

that Geoff had not written those signatures on those cheques.

0:19:310:19:36

Having already found evidence of Beverley Jeffs' scamming,

0:19:360:19:39

the police moved their investigation to the next level.

0:19:390:19:42

We put a team together, ensured that she was arrested

0:19:420:19:45

and then carried out searches in the car,

0:19:450:19:48

her home address, and also the office at the care home.

0:19:480:19:51

What they discovered during the raid

0:19:510:19:54

were documents and evidence suggesting a lifestyle

0:19:540:19:56

well and truly beyond her means.

0:19:560:20:00

She had holidays in Hawaii, trips to China, Dubai,

0:20:000:20:04

and all across the Mediterranean.

0:20:040:20:06

She had a fairly new detached house,

0:20:060:20:10

there was obviously the Mercedes-Benz,

0:20:100:20:13

there was artwork inside the house, there was jewellery.

0:20:130:20:16

In the back garden, I remember there was a hot tub.

0:20:160:20:19

Police also discovered fake qualifications,

0:20:190:20:22

including one in social care, quotations for plastic surgery,

0:20:220:20:26

and brochures for the purchase of other residential care homes.

0:20:260:20:29

It was clear that she had her sights set on moving up in terms of status

0:20:290:20:34

and also in terms of her career, if you like.

0:20:340:20:37

Beverly Jeffs was brought in for questioning.

0:20:370:20:40

The interviews were carried out on tape,

0:20:400:20:42

so they were tape-recorded,

0:20:420:20:44

and there was a solicitor present as well during the interviews.

0:20:440:20:48

It was carried out in a room not dissimilar to this, really.

0:20:480:20:52

Far from being co-operative or admitting what she'd done,

0:20:520:20:54

the care home manager stood defiant and answered, "No comment",

0:20:540:20:58

to the vast majority of DC Shergill's questions.

0:20:580:21:01

And that surprised me,

0:21:010:21:02

because I thought somebody in her position might turn round

0:21:020:21:06

and sort of hold her hands up and explain, the game's up here,

0:21:060:21:10

the police have put this evidence in front of me, I can't really deny it.

0:21:100:21:14

But she did just that.

0:21:140:21:16

Despite all the evidence, there were yet more shocking claims to come.

0:21:160:21:20

It was now that Beverly Jeffs played her final trump card.

0:21:200:21:24

At no stage did we think for a second she'd turn round

0:21:240:21:28

and say she was the biological daughter of Geoff Mansfield.

0:21:280:21:31

That came from completely left-field,

0:21:310:21:33

and it did throw me, actually.

0:21:330:21:35

She claimed that she was my cousin's illegitimate daughter.

0:21:350:21:39

I never thought there was a remote possibility of it.

0:21:390:21:42

I was just incredulous.

0:21:420:21:44

But astonishingly, Beverly Jeffs claimed to have evidence

0:21:440:21:48

to back up these outlandish claims,

0:21:480:21:50

evidence which included a family photograph.

0:21:500:21:53

She suggested that the male in the photograph

0:21:530:21:56

that was holding the small baby, which was her, was Geoff Mansfield.

0:21:560:22:00

Terry was horrified,

0:22:000:22:02

mainly because the male in the actual photograph was his father,

0:22:020:22:07

and not Geoff Mansfield, so he knew straightaway

0:22:070:22:09

that there had to be some kind of discrepancy there.

0:22:090:22:12

I learned that that photograph was what is called photoshopped.

0:22:140:22:18

She had taken the head of my father off it,

0:22:190:22:22

and put it on to the photograph of her own father,

0:22:220:22:26

holding her as a baby.

0:22:260:22:28

In other words, she'd replaced the two heads.

0:22:280:22:30

Beverly Jeffs was going all-out

0:22:330:22:34

to prove she was the rightful beneficiary

0:22:340:22:36

of her stake in the £723,000 will.

0:22:360:22:40

The lengths she was willing to go to were astounding,

0:22:410:22:44

including fraudulent DNA tests.

0:22:440:22:48

DNA analysis which Beverly Jeffs claimed

0:22:480:22:52

had been done on samples taken from my cousin's shaver

0:22:520:22:58

and nasal hair trimmer.

0:22:580:23:02

The DNA test didn't have any names on it

0:23:020:23:04

to link Geoff Mansfield as the father,

0:23:040:23:07

and its origins were questionable.

0:23:070:23:09

She also produced medical records, supposedly from her own childhood.

0:23:090:23:14

The records that were held at a local hospital were forged

0:23:140:23:17

as though to show that her next of kin or father was Geoff Mansfield.

0:23:170:23:22

It turned out Beverly Jeffs was a serial scammer

0:23:240:23:28

who'd been stealing from other vulnerable people in her care,

0:23:280:23:31

including an elderly female resident at the same residential home.

0:23:310:23:36

It became clear that in the two-year period that she was a resident,

0:23:360:23:40

in excess of £40,000 had been taken from her account,

0:23:400:23:43

and this was predominantly from ATMs.

0:23:430:23:46

The withdrawals went on pretty much on a day-to-day basis.

0:23:460:23:51

The victim wasn't well enough to leave the home

0:23:510:23:54

as frequently as that.

0:23:540:23:56

With so much evidence against her,

0:23:560:23:58

it was time for Beverly Jeffs to stand in front of a jury,

0:23:580:24:02

but she was defiant until the very end.

0:24:020:24:05

I thought once the stealing from the bank account had been revealed,

0:24:050:24:09

I thought she would have found it to her own benefit to plead guilty,

0:24:090:24:14

but she was denying that she was a liar, that every claim was true.

0:24:140:24:20

Unfortunately, scams like this

0:24:200:24:23

which carefully target the savings of elderly, vulnerable people

0:24:230:24:27

are not uncommon.

0:24:270:24:28

They can come in many forms, from rogue will-writing firms

0:24:280:24:31

to cold call builders, but the objective is always the same -

0:24:310:24:35

to ruthlessly fleece people of their cash.

0:24:350:24:38

After a two-week trial,

0:24:380:24:39

Beverly Jeffs was found guilty of ten counts of fraud and theft,

0:24:390:24:43

and sentenced to five years in prison.

0:24:430:24:46

She was also ordered to pay back almost £80,000.

0:24:460:24:50

It was a unanimous verdict.

0:24:500:24:52

It took just over an hour for the jury to come to that verdict,

0:24:520:24:55

so I was thoroughly satisfied with that.

0:24:550:24:58

I was happy that she'd been found guilty,

0:24:580:25:00

and relieved that it's all over.

0:25:000:25:03

I'm very grateful to the police officer.

0:25:030:25:05

I think ultimately, somebody that shows this kind of greed

0:25:050:25:08

and this level of dishonesty,

0:25:080:25:11

you can't fail to be motivated investigating them

0:25:110:25:14

and bringing the truth to light.

0:25:140:25:16

Before we go,

0:25:220:25:23

there's just time to tell you about some of the latest scams out there.

0:25:230:25:27

I've come to meet an expert from the Serious Organised Crime Agency

0:25:270:25:31

to get the low-down on what you should be looking out for.

0:25:310:25:34

Today, we're looking at a classic con known as the black money scam.

0:25:360:25:41

The black money scam, it's been around for decades

0:25:440:25:47

but there will be people who've never heard of it. How does it work?

0:25:470:25:50

The criminal will say, we've got some money,

0:25:500:25:53

but it's had to be smuggled from here and it's in a disguised form,

0:25:530:25:57

but come along, pay us a little bit of money for the chemicals

0:25:570:26:01

and the secret of how to reduce it back to money, and it's all yours.

0:26:010:26:05

They'll open up a big box, and inside is piles of what looks like money.

0:26:050:26:12

The trouble is, it's all covered in a black powder or gel,

0:26:120:26:15

or something like that, and they'll take one off the top

0:26:150:26:18

and say, let's look at this one,

0:26:180:26:20

they'll use a special chemical which only they can sell you.

0:26:200:26:24

And then, in the sink,

0:26:240:26:25

they'll clean it off and it'll come off quite easily,

0:26:250:26:29

and then you've got a genuine note in dollar currency.

0:26:290:26:32

And you naturally think the rest of it is all dollars,

0:26:320:26:35

it's just all the hard work is now cleaning it up.

0:26:350:26:38

Course, the rest of it is just plain paper.

0:26:380:26:40

Whatever the colour of the money, don't be fooled.

0:26:400:26:43

It's an elaborate scam designed to separate you from your cash.

0:26:430:26:47

Fraudsters will for ever be coming up with new ways

0:26:470:26:50

to get you to part with your cash,

0:26:500:26:52

but armed with a little bit of knowledge,

0:26:520:26:54

you can be one step ahead of them.

0:26:540:26:57

Stay safe. I'll see you next time.

0:26:570:26:59

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