Mastermind of £113m high street bank cyber-fraud made so much money he flew team of valets 8,000 miles to polish his fleet of custom sports cars
Gravity defying
A BLING-loving fraudster who made so much money from a £113m banking scam he flew a team of valets 8,000 miles to polish his fleet of custom Porsches has been jailed for 11 years.
Feezan Hameed Choudhary, 25, partied with pop stars while splashing out on Rolex watches, jewellery, trips to Dubai and shopping sprees in Harrods.
Nicknamed 'Fizzy', the Glasgow-based criminal owned several luxury motors including a Bentley and a Lamborghini after the scam raked in more than £3million a month.
He was so obsessive about his motors he flew staff from Platinum Polish in Glasgow on an 8,000-mile round trip to buff up his fleet of Porsche Cayennes at his luxury villa in Lahore, Pakistan.
He also flew the polishers to Dubai to treat a Ferrari and a Lamborghini.
He fleeced 750 business customers of Lloyds, RBS and other banks after tricking them into revealing their account details by claiming they had been hacked.
Funds were then moved to other accounts "in the blink of an eye" before being withdrawn in cash by a team mules. In total £66m was laundered abroad to Dubai and Pakistan.
Victims have spoken of how they were "taken in very easily" by Feezan and were left feeling "devastated" and "traumatised".
Pitman Blackstock Solicitors were fleeced out of £2,260,625.89 after getting a call from "Peter" claiming he was calling from the security department Lloyds Bank.
It can now be revealed Feezan - mastermind of the biggest cyber-fraud Scotland Yard has ever seen - was jailed for 11 years last week at Southwark crown court.
Michael Shorrock QC, prosecuting, described the fraud as "a nationwide conspiracy to defraud companies and businesses by hacking into their bank accounts and stealing large sums of money" between January 2013 and last October.
He said: "Literally within a blink of an eye this money was being moved from one account to another.
"On occasions the breach is accomplished by corrupting bank employees who pass on customers' information to those committing the fraud.
"The fraudsters were able to interfere with the telephone system of the bank customers so the customer was unable to receive calls while the fraud was taking place."
Fizzy's personal take from the racket was between £500,000 and £1.5m a month - which he lavished on a pop star lifestyle.
He even hung out with Pakistani singing star Bilal Saeed and claimed to have been producing a music video for the star, the court heard.
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The fraudster also bragged of having a number of other businesses including a restaurant in London and dealing in "fast cars" and bought himself properties in Motherwell.
Police officers found an image of Fizzy shopping over Facetime while one of his accomplices held the phone to show him jeans - which he bought using a bin bag full of cash.
"It's a sign of respect for him, he was at the top, and would never touch the money," said DCI Andrew Gould,who led the Operation Falcon case involving 100 officers from 16 forces.
He added: "I have done terrorism command investigations in the UK before, the level of tradecraft they used throughout their criminality was as high if not higher than most terrorist networks I have investigated.
"They would be making one to two millions a week, they were working 10-5, five days a week, smashing victims all day every day."
Fizzy went on the run after cops smashed the ring and was arrested trying to board a flight from Paris to Pakistan with a fake passport last November.
The crook, whose first conviction was for trying to use a stolen credit card when he was just 16, admitted fraud charges in July but refused to name the insider at Lloyds Bank who had helped or to drop any other fraudsters in it as it could "cause problems" for his family.
He told the court: "I was driving a nice car at a young age - people were paying attention and someone suggested to kidnap me at that point as well, to ask for ransom."
Fizzy's Bentley was firebombed in an arson attack outside his home in Pollokshields, Glasgow, earlier this year after he was accused of having an affair with another criminal's wife.
Judge Peter Testar described Fizzy as a "very strong personality" who is "persuasive and authoritative to the point of bullying".
He said the gang were "clever, persistent and pitiless" and Fizzy was "the top of the pyramid".
The judge said: "The damage to the people running these businesses was potentially enormous, it was potentially devastating.
"It would break the hearts of those who lost this money to see how it was frittered away on frivolous junk at Harrods."
Fizzy pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to launder money and was jailed for 11 years.
His little brother Nouman Choudhary, 22, acted as the gang's accountant, investing money in properties in Scotland and Pakistan. He was given three and a half years for conspiracy to launder money.
Abdul Iqbal, 23, of Edinburgh, was described as Fizzy's "butler" and spent £95,895 on a store loyalty card at Harrods and was gifted a £3,500 watch. He got 21 months in jail.
Syed Al Amish, 24, of Luton, was jailed for 32 months and Mohammed Mehtab, 35, of Watford, got eight months suspended for two years all for money laundering.
Middle man Mohammed Azhar, 38, of Slough, snitched on the others to receive a significantly reduced sentence and was described by police as "one of the best collaborators" they had seen.
He was given just 32 months despite his key role, but his family must now spend their lives in witness protection.
Lloyds account business advisor Jones Opare-Addo, 58, of Putney, South West London, was jailed for five years for leaking account details to the gang.
Lloyds workers Emma and Amy Daramola, sisters aged 23 and 24 and both of Barking, East London, were handed suspended sentences earlier this year after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit fraud by abuse of position.
In total 16 defendants have been sentenced so far for a total of more than 35 years in immediate jail terms.
A confiscation hearing is set for May 3 next year.
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