Nurse avoids being struck off for being part of gang which scammed £3MILLION from payday lender Wonga
Sherene Bascoe, 21, who was involved in "identity crime on an industrial scale", is suspended from profession for just 12 months
A NURSE involved in a £3m scam on controversial payday lenders Wonga has been suspended from practice for just 12 months.
Sherene Bascoe, 21, was part of a gang which exploited the company's faulty website algorithms to make more than 19,000 applications using the same password 'Bengali90'.
The cash was then laundered through hundreds of bank accounts by the fraudsters while the unsuspecting victims were left facing paying the one per cent a day interest payments.
Applications were made online by entering names, addresses and dates of birth together with the debit card number used to make repayments and the details of the account receiving the cash.
At the time of the scam in 2012 and 2013 Wonga used an algorithm to determine whether the information provided is correct and whether the account number matches the name and other details of the person applying for the loan.
The lender has since changed all of its systems.
But Richard Hearnden, prosecuting, said: "It would appear that this algorithm failed.
"The result was as many as 19,000 fraudulent applications were successfully processed and paid out."
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Investigator Andy Cope, of City of London Police, had called the scam "identity crime on an industrial level."
Ringleader Kelvin Okusanya, 32, of Milton Keynes, Bucks was jailed for six years after the Old Bailey heard he personally made 82 false applications involving 30 victims.
Bascoe, of Harrow, West London was convicted of a money laundering offence and sentenced to nine months suspended for two years and 140 hours unpaid work.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council heard Bascoe, previously convicted of an offence of dishonesty, was still on the books of London North West Healthcare NHS Trust.
NMC panel chair Clive Powell said: “We bore in mind that there are no concerns raised regarding your clinical practice.
“You accepted that your behaviour was wrong and unacceptable.
“We also bore in mind that this is not an isolated incident.
“We found that you have yet to develop insight into the seriousness of your conviction and the impact your actions have had on the reputation of the nursing profession and the NMC.”
But Mr Powell said a 12-month suspension would be “sufficient to send a clear message to you, the public and the profession about the standards of conduct and behaviour expected of a registered nurse.”
He added: “A striking off order would be disproportionate and unduly punitive.”
Bascoe admitted her conviction for entering into an arrangement facilitating the acquisition of criminal property, but denied that her current fitness to practice was impaired.
The panel found she was currently impaired and suspended her for 12 months, also imposing an 18-month interim suspension order to allow for the possibility of an appeal.
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