Cops demand crackdown on prank call apps being used by Brit fraudsters to con millions over the phone
He used details passed to him by insiders to trick victims he was from their bank's fraud department so they would hand over account details
COPS who smashed the UK's biggest ever fraud racket have warned over the trade in phone number spoofing apps used by the gang.
Feezan "Fizzy" Choudhary, 25, and his crew raked in £113million conning businesses over the phone.
He used details passed to him by insiders to trick victims he was from their bank's fraud department so they would hand over account details.
Choudhary and his gang often used phone spoofing apps which are easily bought online to pretend they were calling from a bank or official authority.
The apps - also available on Android and Apple devices - are sold as a fun way to prank friends by pretending to call from a different number.
But officers fear the ease with which they can be purchased has made it simpler for crooks to con their victims on the phone.
The warning from police comes as The Sun received one call carried out by Choudhary in which he tricks a business to hand over their customer account ID.
The five-minute call from 2013 hears the fraudster pretend to be "Simon" from Natwest's Bankline business service while speaking to an accounts worker.
In a softly spoken English accent the Glasgow-based fraudster claimed to be calling after suspicious activity on the business account.
The woman then replied: "We have had some other funny stuff going on with this account".
Choudhary tells the woman - believed to be from a property firm - that the account has been blocked and he is going to refund two payments.
He then says a "welcome pack and new card reader" would be sent out to her in the morning.
And without a pause, he calmly asks the woman for her details to go through bank security - though it finishes with her asking to call him back.
Officers described how Choudhary "evolved" over the years he fleeced firms to develop an "amazing" patter.
He would make spoof calls from bank numbers to reassure victims and sometimes even made calls from Pakistan through fake numbers.
Now officers have warned that there needs to be a "clamp down" on the availability of phone number spoofing apps.
One app advertises that users can "Make a prank call with a new caller ID" or "Make phone calls from the beach, but they think you are calling from your office phone."
In a recent case officers even found fraudsters had used spoofing apps to call victims from numbers for the Metropolitan Police and Financial Conduct Authority.
Det Con Joe Holdsworth, of West Yorkshire police, said of Choudhary's spoof number calls: “The Organised Crime Group (OCG) used telephone number spoofing on a number of occasions to assist in the commission of the offences.
"They mainly did this when speaking to a victim who had doubts to whom they were speaking.
"The OCG told the victim they would call the victims mobile and that a banking number would be shown.
"Sometimes this was a generic banking contact centre number and other times it was the number from a relationship manager.
"The fraudsters remained on the landline to the victim and the spoofed number call in some cases gave the victim increased confidence that they were speaking to a genuine bank.”
Choudhary was jailed for 11 years at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to the fraud while another eight gang members were also sentenced.
Around £66m of the stolen cash has still not been recovered with many businesses facing bankruptcy.
Banks do not automatically refund fraud victims but a hearing next year will determine how much money Choudhary will return.
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