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IN THE SOUTHWARK CROWN COURT

T20097653

REGINA

-v-

JASON PLACE aka NICHOLAS PLACE aka NICHOLAS PAYNE (Maloney QC and O’Keefe)

MARK POWELL-RICHARDS (Goose QC and Taylor)

MICHAEL DALY (Rhodes QC and Miss Howard)

ALLEN STRINGER (Bourne-Arton QC and Smith)

JAIPAL SINGH (Carter-Manning QC and Harwood)

ARUN THEAR (Tiwana and Ashton)

OPENING NOTE

SENTENCE

This Note is prepared for the Sentencing Hearing of the above-named

Defendants who pleaded guilty to Count 1 on the 3rd April 2012 (Powell-

Richards, Daly and Stringer), on the 20th April 2012 (Singh and Thear)

and on the 24th April 2012 (Place).

References to pages and appendices in the Jury Bundles can be found in

the Exhibits by using the Jury Bundle Index

(see:- the Spreadsheet accompanying this Note)

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1 These Defendants (except Thear) pleaded guilty to Count 1. Thear has

pleaded guilty to the new Count of Forgery - Count 6.

2 On 14th November 2006 police officers from the Anti-Terrorist Branch SO15 raided the home address of a man called Abid Haider. They found a vast quantity of documentation (JB P55-87) linking Haider to fraud and mortgage fraud in particular. Haider was applying for credit cards and dealing with underwriters (App 1 P138) and applying for mortgages both in his own name and under different names. Police enquiries led them to a company called Confidential Access as Haider was paying CA thousands of pounds for multiple identity documents. It soon became clear that Confidential Access was in the business of providing fraudsters with all the tools needed to create false identities in order to obtain credit.

3 Haider’s arrest caused panic in the ranks at Confidential Access. Information

was deleted from the servers (App 1 P204-9). The organisation feigned co-operation with the Police who were investigating Haider but deliberately supplied them with sanitised documents with crucial incriminating material deleted or changed. This obstructive attitude occurred despite the fact that CA believed that Haider was being investigated for terrorism. CA also emailed Haider’s contact, a person calling herself Lorraine Terry, to warn her that it was a terrorism investigation (App 1 P366-8). CA said they would run the Police around in circles and that is exactly what they tried to do. Haider was subsequently convicted of offences of fraud.

4 Confidential Access was run jointly by Place and Sales. They also operated

under the name Creditmaster or Masters of Credit – although Place described himself, in a letter he wrote to the Gibraltan Judge who dealt with his extradition, as the ‘sole owner’ of CA – xp15523. CA was a sophisticated high tech organisation using state of the art hardware to produce top quality fake documents in the course of which encryption was routinely used to protect its website and its computers from investigation by the authorities. CA is an internet company calling itself (www.confidentialaccess.com), (www.caxess.com) or (www.caxess.net) and various other similar mirror web addresses. The business had been started under a different name in 1995 and built up by Place until by 2008 it was claiming a membership of over 10,000 and a net worth of $200m (according to information supplied to Wikipedia by CA – xp15347). According to Steve Young, Director of Fraud Investigations at Barclays Bank, in 2008 there were no other sites with the sophistication of CA so that CA posed a significant threat to the Financial Services Industry (xp15333). The servers from which Confidential Access operated were based in Hong Kong and were seized by the Police on 3rd December 2008.

5 Confidential Access sold payslips, bank and credit card statements, utility

bills, P60s, PAYE coding notices, electoral registration forms, driving licences (photo-card and counterpart), car insurance cover notes and insurance certificates, MOT certificates, car registration documents,

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passport pages, references, GCSE certificates, tenancy agreements, sets of trading accounts, change of name deeds and provided addresses and other information which enabled fraudsters to create new identities with which to obtain cash from financial institutions.

6 On 16th February 2004 a 192.com account was opened in name of Nicholas

Place, a name frequently used by Jason Place. Later, on 26th September 2008, Place created a 192.com account in the name Nicholas Jason.

7 Place used 192.com to search for suitable matching names and then used

Credit Reference Agencies to find target identities with the best credit ratings. Those people were then effectively cloned and used by CA’s customers to obtain credit using the fake identification documents supplied by CA. CA even created imaginary individuals masquerading as solicitors and accountants and created documents linking those imaginary professionals to reputable firms of solicitors and accountants. Those names would then be used to certify the authenticity of passports and change of name deeds using official looking stamps and titles.

8 CA would give detailed instructions to their customers about how to operate

their fraud. They would issue their customers with an electoral roll application form. All post would be redirected (usually to a rental address – sometimes provided by CA) by the Post Office on payment of a small fee. The person whose identity was being stolen would never know that this was going on. If any question arose as to the address, the victim’s address would be designated as a former address and the rental address as the current address. The customer would then be advised to build up a credit rating by joining clubs and opening catalogue accounts. Then gradually they would start to use the identity documents purchased from CA to fool lenders, banks, mortgage companies, stores and credit card companies into parting with money.

9 CA was paid substantial sums for its products. Fraudsters would routinely pay

many thousands of pounds for their new identities. A set of three years’ professionally sealed and certified Trading Accounts with no reference was sold for £650 or with a reference for £800, an accountant’s written or verbal reference would fetch £200 an accountant’s certificate and verification cost £500; utility bills cost £50; bank statements, credit card bills and mortgage statements £120 (JB P50-54). Payments for these purchases were usually made via the bank accounts of appointed UK collectors including some of the co-Defendants who then transferred the monies to the accounts of Place and Sales. Payments were also made via Paypal, by Zoom and by credit card. In addition, customers would agree to pay CA 50% of the ‘first hit’ – ie loan or credit (eg JB P265-270 – Lucifer who paid £5,000 – ie: half of his first £10,000 loan obtained using his bogus CA documents). The proceeds were divided almost equally between Place and Sales. Place often dealt personally with customers wishing to pay large sums as their 50% ‘first hit’ payment (see eg JB P273-277). This was a lucrative business. According to documents supplied by Place to Mr Steve Young of Barclays Bank, CA turned over in

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excess of £11m in the period 2004-2008 (xp15506). Only a small portion of that sum can be traced through bank accounts known to the Police (in particular Datafresh – Sales – and Arvamedia – Place – and the exhibited accounts in their own names). It is clear that there must be (and are) other bank accounts yet to be found. CA was after all an international business.

10 The CA website also hosts forums in which members openly discuss fraud and

potential fraudulent schemes and auctions (CBay) in which identity documents could be traded.

11 A necessary part of the system was the telephone diversion system. CA

employed call-handling services organised to deal with any caller attempting to verify a reference or obtain information about a previous employment. Calls were diverted without alerting callers to the fact that, in most instances, their calls were being diverted to someone in league with CA who would pretend to represent the employer and give a glowing credit reference for the fake borrower. These services were paid for by Place and Sales.

12 One company on the list of bogus employers provided by CA to its customers

was National Chartered Accountancy Network. (JB P297). The person associated with this number was “Richard Braysher”. Richard Braysher is in fact a real person and an accountant whose identity was stolen by Place. The bogus Richard Braysher purported to be an accountant who signed hundreds of accountant’s certificates, references and change of name deeds found on the CA computers. His was also a name used to countersign passport applications or to certify their authenticity. Place himself used the Braysher identity to countersign his own application to change the name on his own passport (JB P357-8), to produce a bogus letter to himself from Braysher in October 2004 which he then used to verify changes in respect of Arvamedia to the Bank of Ireland (JB P374A) and to certify the genuineness of a false bank statement submitted to his Gibraltar Bank (JB P373-4) to show a substantial balance in his Nationwide account. Many of the false documents certified in the Braysher name also bore an official-looking but forged Norton Rose stamp – they are a genuine firm of Solicitors. The Police also found that other names purporting to be genuine professional people had been hijacked and used on identity documents by the CA organisation – names such as J Worrall Smythe and J Thomson.

13 In July 2007 Derek Duncan, who works for RBS (which owns Nat West) in

the Investigation and Threat Management Dept, emailed (JB P834) the people he believed were hosting the server Confidential Access were using (no-ip.com) because he had become aware that Confidential Access were producing RBS documents in breach of international trademark law and contrary to the Bank’s intellectual property rights – in fact, Nat West Business bank account documents were being auctioned on the site. The email contained Mr Duncan’s contact details including his mobile phone number. Mr Duncan’s complaint was sent to no-ip.com who he believed hosted the CA website. In fact no-ip.com were only the domain name

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providers and so they innocently forwarded Mr Duncan’s email to Confidential Access for comment (JB P835). CA’s threatening response rather sums up the attitude of a criminal organisation towards its victims large and small (JB P836). If that email is correct in stating that Confidential Access in fact had 30,000 members, one can easily see the extent of the potential losses to financial institutions around the world and the huge profits to be made by these Defendants. A further abusive email was sent to Mr Duncan from security@caxess.com (JB P837). The Duncan email was posted on the Confidential Access web forum and within 24 hours personal information about another Derek Duncan (Sp 211) and his partner were posted on the website (JB P840) and attempts made to damage his credit rating. This Mr Duncan and his wife began to receive mail in the names of others, from loan companies, banks, credit card companies and mobile phone companies. They received Council tax bills and fielded constant phone calls from companies trying to track down named individuals using the Duncans’ address. Apart from the distress and inconvenience caused to the Duncans, their credit profile was obviously compromised. They began to receive unsolicited correspondence including a Vodaphone bill for one Gary Moffatt (JB P841-2). RBS’s Derek Duncan received threatening texts and his wife was threatened with rape when she answered his telephone. This is just the kind of mayhem Confidential Access was capable of fomenting.

14 Some of CA’s customers were caught, prosecuted and sentenced to

imprisonment. A list of those known convicted customers appears at Appendix 3.

15 Jason Place [also known as Nicholas Place or Nicholas Payne (DOB

22/07/69)] is one of the principals behind Confidential Access and Creditmasters or Masters of Credit. During the currency of these conspiracies he was based in Spain.

16 The officer in the case DC Xinaris requested information from CA and

emailed Place in Spain to ask when he would be available for interview. Place said he would not be returning to the UK.

17 By November 2008, Place and his colleagues had decided to conduct a

personal vendetta against DC Xinaris. On 27th November an abusive notice was posted on the CA Forum with one of the email chains in which DC Xinaris had been requesting information earlier. Next day, DC Xinaris found (Sp 307) on the CA website a page publishing a photograph of him, details of what were alleged to be his address and date of birth, a mock up of a driving licence in his name and racist remarks about his ethnic heritage. The details were sufficient to lay DC Xinaris open to becoming a victim of identity theft. And so it turned out. This was clearly an attempt to deter or derail the investigation by damaging the reputation of the investigator. Within two days he was notified by Experian and Equifax of a change in his credit profile and a credit card was applied for in his name.

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18 On 17th June 2009 police officers attended addresses in Spain with colleagues from the Guardia Civil (Sp 399). Place’s computers were seized from his home in Alicante along with detailed information concerning European Arrest Warrants and what can only be described as a forgery kit – all the equipment necessary to produce forged or copy identity documents – not only the manufacturing tools but also the templates, holograms and logos needed to emulate official documents.

19 By 29th June 2009, Caxess Security (Place) was emailing the officer in the

case with threats to expose public figures unless CA was left alone (JB P814).

20 Place was arrested in Gibraltar and was eventually extradited to the UK on

17th March 2010. He initially contested the extradition proceedings but then consented to his extradition.

21 Place declared no income to HMRC during 2002 - 2009 (Sp 335). However

examination of the Hong Kong server revealed a total value of orders (where payment was recorded as having been received) in the sum of £856,266.00 for the period January 2005 to August 2008 (sp687). That was only a small part of the picture as the documents supplied to Mr Young revealed.

22 Place has convictions for forgery (number 8), conspiracy to contravene

section 17(1) of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 (number 9), conspiracy to defraud (number 11) and conspiracy to defraud (number 12). Place’s conviction number 12 and Sales’ conviction number 15 in fact relate to a case in which they were co-defendants.

23 The Guildford conspiracy to defraud at number 11 on Place’s antecedents

(Place alone) took place between July and December 1997. Place with 2 other men intercepted mail, including bills, of members of the public. They then made credit checks with Experian on the names taken from the intercepted mail or in the name of the person whose mail had been intercepted. They then obtained details of vacant addresses which they purported to use as accommodation or employment addresses, in some cases installing BT telephone lines at the address and made numerous applications for credit using the information they had purloined. The defendants also provided false employment details showing lucrative employment. They then obtained credit cards with limits ranging from £2000 to £7500 which they used to withdraw cash from ATMs or to purchase goods. The defendants often paid one card off with another that had been fraudulently obtained in order to avoid suspicion and to boost their credit limits. They were caught when a supermarket cashier became suspicious.

24 So far as the Maidstone matter is concerned (number 12 on Place’s

antecedents and number 15 on Sales’ antecedents), Place and Sales conspired to obtain short-term leases on premises using false details and then using details of previous occupiers of those premises or persons of the

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same name or other innocent members of the public in order to obtain banking services, credit cards and finance agreements. Sales used an Experian account in his name. Telephone diversion was employed. The offences are a mirror image of the present conspiracy. The only difference being that in the present case Place and Sales were franchising their system to a much wider market of perpetrators.

25 Mark Powell-Richards (DOB 21/08/52 – convictions spent) is a director of M Nightingale Ltd. M Nightingale Ltd (MNL) was incorporated in 1993 with Mr and Mrs Powell-Richards as its directors and shareholders and it was registered as an account holder with both Experian and Equifax. Apart from a short break between December 2004 and August 2005 the company had been registered with Experian since 27th October 1998. Until 21st December 2004, MNL had only held a basic account which entitled it only to access limited public information. In August 2005, Powell-Richards applied for and obtained an account which allowed him greater access to detailed information about individuals. He provided the credit reference agencies with all required information about MNL and satisfied them of his company’s bona fides. M Nightingale Ltd listed one of its activities as credit broker (a business providing a perfect excuse for the sort of enquiries made by a criminal organisation to identify innocent targets for fraud).

26 Powell-Richards has known Sales for thirty years and in interview described

him as a good friend. The Prosecution accepts that his role was, as he maintains, to allow Sales and/or Place to use his accounts to research names and addresses to identify suitable creditworthy victim identities. These searches were crucial to the conspiracy as they provided the raw information required to create a false identity.

27 Between 1st January 2006 to 29th May 2008 (JB P468-477) M Nightingale

Ltd conducted 360 name searches using Experian. That also does not allow for the fact that the usage of the account was limited (in co-operation with the Metropolitan Police) from early January 2007. Analysis of the searches shows how they fitted in to the conspiracy. For example, the names used by Haider, Hiett and Owen in particular were researched by this means (see paragraphs 111 to 114 and 117 of the Opening in the trial).

28 In the same period (JB P444-467), M Nightingale Ltd conducted 1,756 name

searches using Equifax. By way of example only, identities purchased by the fraudsters Lucifer, Paula Hiett, and Jamie Potter were searched via this Equifax account (eg:- JB P465).

29 Payments for the services provided by MNL were made from Barry Sales’

Datafresh Ltd account at HSBC to M Nightingale Ltd (eg: App 11 P39).

30 Powell-Richards was arrested on the 28th May 2008 and interviewed. He agreed that he had allowed his friend Sales, whom he had known for thirty years, to use his Equifax and Experian accounts to conduct credit searches on behalf of Sales’ company Datafresh. Since Sales had begun to use the

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account Powell-Richards claimed that he himself had never used it. He believed Sales was involved with Confidential Access which he understood was a site that helped to rebuild people’s credit history. By his Basis of Plea he admits that he was a knowing party to a conspiracy between March 2005 and July 2008. He also admits that he allowed his Bromley Finance account to be used in 2003 and 2004. He was paid for his services and the Crown has no evidence to dispute what he says about the amounts received through his accounts, namely just over £100,000.00.

31 Powell-Richards was therefore providing an outwardly respectable face for

this criminal organisation and providing an apparently legitimate means of acquiring otherwise confidential information. His role may have been a passive one but his was an essential cog in the fraud.

32 Powell-Richards was charged with these offences on the 2nd September 2009.

33 Once the credit searches were complete, a credit profile could be produced and

an order for documents in the target names would be placed by the customer and recorded on the server. Place and Sales would either create files on their computers or have someone create them to fulfil the order. Documents created in response to the orders were sent electronically to Daly, to Stringer and later to Singh who were responsible for producing and printing the finished items on their hardware and for forwarding the documents to the customers. Given the nature of the equipment such as laminators and UV lamps found at some of the addresses it is clear that those Defendants put the bogus documents into their final form.

34 Michael Daly (DOB 08/10/43 – Antecedents awaited) was arrested on the

28th May 2008.

35 At Daly’s address (7, Holmewood House, 37, Hastings Road, Bexhill-on-Sea) the Police found an unbadged computer - switched on - which was running an encryption programme. There were also expensive printers. In interview Daly said Place had asked him to work for him in September 2007. In his Basis of Plea he says it was in fact August 2007. His role was to print and post false identity documents to customers. Place set him up with the computer which Place could remotely access from Spain. They could communicate by Trillion or Skype. Daly said he took 10% of whatever was paid into his bank account and was then for saying that he believed he was sending out novelty products. In fact he said he had seen letters stating this in the packages he sent out. £7500 was seized from his address which he said was money given to him by his daughter so he could purchase a car.

36 Police found what purported to be an agency agreement between Daly and

Caxess Corporation (giving an address in China) under which Daly, it was said, received 25% commission on any orders routed through him (JB P487-8).

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37 Following the interview the police were able to crack the encryption code. In the folder entitled “My Work” the police found evidence of huge fraud including all the blanks and templates necessary to create the following:

CA Instructions to their Customers:-

Instructions on creating a ‘virtual home’ xp11012 JB P489

Legal Warning xp11055-6 JB P490-1

Credit re-match advice xp11161 JB P492

Electoral Investment Form xp11114 JB P493

Validated Bank account advice xp11244 JB P494

Arvamedia Credit Card Info request xp11296 JB P495

CreditMaster Instructions (50%) *** xp11315-7 JB P496-9

Bank and Card Templates/Statements for:-

Halifax Card Services template xp11004-6 JB P500-2

Halifax letterhead xp11104 JB P503

Harrods Statement template xp11008-9 JB P504-5

HSBC xp11014-5 JB P506-7

Intelligent Finance xp11042-3 JB P508-9

Lloyds TSB xp11058 JB P510

Nat West xp11078 JB P511

American Express xp11207 JB P512

Barclays xp11285-6 JB P513-4

and many, many more

Tax and Employment documents:-

PAYE Coding Notice forms (blank) xp11023-6 JB P515-8

PAYE completed coding notice xp11052 JB P519

Sage Payslip xp11151 JB P520

Wates Employment Reference xp11177 JB P521

Motoring Documents:-

Car Insurance Temporary Cover Note xp11028 JB P522

Counterpart Driving Licence xp11309-10 JB P523-4

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Old Style Driving Licence (blank) xp11070 JB P525

Old style Driving Licence (with info) xp11071 JB P526

MOT Certificate (2nd page) xp11101 JB P528

Registration Document xp11255-6 JB 529-30

Utility Bills:-

ESB Electricity xp11047-8 JB P531-2

London Energy xp11062-3 JB P533-4

Npower xp11097-9 JB P535-7

and many, many more

Templates and Letterheads

Wates Contruction xp11242 JB P538

Equifax Letterheads xp11119-10 JB 539-40

Institute of Chartered Accountants xp11076 JB P541

KPMG Group xp11235 JB P542

Electoral Registration Form xp11116-7 JB P543-4

Miscellaneous Documents:-

London East Anglian Group GCSE xp11112 JB P545

38 Daly’s claims in interview were clearly false as he now admits.

39 Money was paid into Daly’s Lloyds TSB bank account 126471168 by customers of Confidential Access and then channelled by him to Place and Sales. Those payments were made from August 2007 until the date of Daly’s arrest (28/05/08).

40 Between 30th August 2007 and 22nd May 2008 Daly either withdrew (or

transferred to his other Classic account sort code 30 97 66 account number 01860755) over £100,000 (see example at App 11 P199 and P284). From his Classic account he paid Hammond (eg: App 11 P285), TelecomIt Ltd (eg: App 11 P287) and from 23rd October 2007 paid for computer supplies and to WP Securstar, which is for an encryption program. Regular withdrawals were made in cash from these Daly accounts. See App 11 P287 for typical activity.

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41 Daly then sent the false documents to the customers. Daly was well aware of what he was sending out and what these documents would be used for.

42 From March 2008 to November 2008 an undercover police officer using the

name Russell White carried out a number of test purchases of Confidential Access products. Amongst the bogus documents he purchased was a P60 which was posted from the Bexhill area where Daly lives (App 9 P1). A gas bill in White’s name was found on the Daly computer (JB P572-3). The CA website advised the officer to pay money to the Lloyds TSB account of Michael Daly number 12647168 sort code 30 99 64.

43 Also during 2008 a BBC journalist, Anthony Smith, who was researching

CA, became a CA member and bought a driving licence in the name of the then Home Secretary Jacqueline Smith (App 10 P4). A photo of the Home Secretary from BBC archives was used and her address from the electoral roll. The money (£305) was paid into Daly’s bank account at a branch in Hammersmith on 8th February 2008 (App 10 P5 + 39) and the photo-card driving licence (App 10 P37) was sent in an envelope postmarked Leeds (App 10 P38) the city where Stringer resides. The money paid by the journalist for a bogus bank statement and gas utility bill in the name of the Home Secretary was also paid into the Daly account (App 10 P40) as was the payment for a driving licence in the name of Vernon Coaker the junior minister at the Home Office (App 10 P51).

44 Daly’s computer was also searched for the Norton Rose documentation.

There were found, in addition to 14 of the 18 Braysher Change of Name Deeds (JB P320-356), three tenancy agreements (JB P365-372) and an image of a certified UK passport (JB P362), all signed by someone called J Thomson. Norton Rose did employ a female solicitor by the name J Thomson who was continuously based abroad; so either her name had been appropriated or this was a coincidence. All these documents bore a forged Norton Rose stamp, which originated from Place’s computer DMH/CS3/57.

45 It is clear Daly (‘Mick UK’ or ‘Caxess South East’) was in contact via the

Trillion program with both Place (‘Caxess (Jason)’) and Sales (‘Bert of the South’) (xp11828-11841 - not in JB). There are discussions about how money should be paid out and to whom.

46 One example will suffice:- at 10.11.54 on 16th April 2008 Sales instructed

Daly (by Trillion) to pay monies out in the following way: £350 to Hammond, £1,400 to Place, £1,610 to Sales and 10% for Daly - a total of £3,360 (JB P574). That day Daly transferred £3,695 to his 01860755 Classic account and withdrew £3,360 in cash (App 11 P298). £1,610 was paid in cash into Sales’ Nationwide account (App 11 P318) and £1,400 cash went into Place’s Gibraltar account (App 11 P428) on the same day.

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47 Similar instructions and execution can be seen at 11.57.36 on 24th April 2008 and also at 07.49.18 on 20th May 2008 when Sales instructed Daly to pay £1,620 to M Nightingale Ltd.

48 Daly also had bank account details for Place, Sales, Cassandra Payne,

Christina Hammond and TelecomIT (JB P578 and P579-583). Sales sent Daly the bank details for Stringer (not in JB – xp11830).

49 Daly admits that around £100,000 went through his accounts of which he says

he received 10%.

50 When Daly was interviewed again in December 2008 about the files that had been found on his computer he made no comment. He was charged with these offences on 14th September 2009.

51 In the tax years ended April 2007 and 2008, Daly declared profits from work

as a private hire operator of £9,266.00 and £6,175.00 respectively.

52 Allen Stringer (DOB 24/07/54 – convictions spent) was involved in printing documents for Confidential Access in particular photo-card and counterpart driving licences, which can be used not merely to allow someone to drive but also as proof of identity.

53 Stringer was arrested on 10th June 2008 at his home address. In a locked room

the Police found a computer MSR/HA/20 running an encryption programme, high-grade printers of the same type found at Daly’s address, a UV lamp and laminators. Again, analysis of the hard-drive revealed files containing documents that mirrored those on Place and Sales’ computers. Stringer’s role was to produce, print and laminate the driving licences created by CA. From analysis of payments into his bank account it is clear his relationship with CA stretches back to at least 2005.

54 Datafresh (App 11 P132-151) paid Stringer in respect of “Graphics” (eg: App

11 P80) and in respect of particular order numbers from May 2005 (eg: App 11 P40). From January 2005 to August 2006 Stringer’s HSBC account received £14,450 from CA Graphics and Datafresh. In September 2006 Place (App 11 P330) paid £2,000 into the account (App 11 P152). From October 2006 to February 2008 £16,170 was deposited in Leicester, Guiseley, Manchester and Bexhill in cash into his account. Between July 2007 and March 2008 a total of £13,800 was paid into his account by way of Paypal transfers. In August 2007 he received £750 from the Adam Smith account. From June 2007 he was paid via Place’s Paypal account (App 11 from P165). Total £47,170.00 (HSBC).

55 From 31st May 2005 to 18th March 2008 he also received £11,770 of

unexplained mainly cash credits into his Barclays account 50285645 (App 11 P371-401). There were also a few credits into this account from Datafresh (App 11 from P371). The total included a transfer of £1,500.00 from the Adam Smith account (App 11 P387). There was also a payment from Arvamedia with the reference ‘Nicholas J Place’ in the sum of

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£1,317 on 15th December 2006 (xp14517 – App 11 P403) and from ‘Nicholas Place’ in a total amount of £3,100.00. Stringer also arranged for payments from Place to be made into an account in his niece’s name (Kirsty Blackburn (nee Stringer) – A/c 30818400) an account she no longer used.

56 The Crown can prove that overall he has received via these accounts just short

of £60,000.00 for his services.

57 The payments to Stringer are certainly not recorded in his tax returns. Apart from receipts totalling £1,221.15 from R G Fowler Ltd in Baildon near Leeds in the year ending 2003, he has provided no employment information up to the time of his arrest.

58 In interview, Stringer claimed to have stopped making identity documents in

2006. He said he had met Place in Spain and had agreed to send him business and ID cards but nothing else. He said he designed flash banners for websites but had never heard of Confidential Access. He refused to give the Police the encryption key for his computer.

59 When the Police broke the encryption on his computer they found a

Confidential Access file in “My Work”. In “My Work” there were three folders namely April07-08 done, March 2008 and May. The files within those folders contain photographs, signatures and order invoices: everything necessary for the creation of forged driving licences. As he now admits, his role was as the producer of the false UK photocard driving licences essential to this fraud. He claims to have been paid £100 (later £150) for each licence.

60 The email names Prime Suspect, Alzyapal and Mickey Mouse are all

Stringer. There are emails from Place to Stringer giving details to be put on driving licences and names and addresses to which the document should be sent (JB P626-630).

61 A folder called “Al” was found on Place’s Spanish Computer. It contained

false insurance certificates in Stringer’s name and passport pages in the name Alan Smith (with Stringer’s photograph).

62 When Stringer was re-interviewed on 10/9/08 he made no comment to most

of the questions he was asked. He clearly had no explanation for the Police discoveries and the monies paid to him by his co-conspirators. He now says he was already – by 2003 - making false driving licences before he met Place.

63 Stringer was charged with these offences on the 7th September 2009.

64 Jaipal Singh (DOB 07/08/80 – no previous convictions) was the director of

a company called Airwaves Telecommunications Ltd. He supplied fake documents including false bank statements and payslips + a copy of a passport page and also supplied a telephone diversion service for

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customers of Confidential Access who wished to pretend that they were in employment. He allowed his bank account to be used for receiving cash payments which he says was partly to reimburse himself for monies owed to him by CA for his services.

65 Singh was arrested on 19th November 2008 at his home in Wednesbury, West

Midlands. On arrest he said “the only thing here to do with Confidential Access is an email I have. It’s an agreement to receive money through my account.” A computer UHS/1 was seized from Airwaves Telecommunications, which Singh said was used for his work with Confidential Access. The computer was encrypted in the same way as Stringer’s had been. He had the same type of sophisticated Epson printer as Daly and Stringer. It was only connected to the computer dealing with Confidential Access business.

66 En route to his offices, Singh told the Police that he was an authorised

collector for CA. He received money on behalf of the website. He dealt with someone named ‘J’ also known as Jason. He had printed fake wage slips for CA until five or six months earlier. He said Jason could remotely access his computer.

67 Seized from Singh was an agreement dated 28th April 2008 between him and

CA (JB P637-8) providing an address in China and a signature (Zhang Tao) witnessed by the mysterious Bill Hardwick (both are pseudonyms of Place). The agreement permitted CA to use Singh’s bank account to receive customer payments and to provide a remote printing service. Also seized were blank pay slips which Singh printed and filled in with details supplied by CA (JB P639-640).

68 In interview Singh said he had contacted Confidential Access to tout for the

call diverting business. He had provided them with six or seven numbers. He had charged £4,800 but had not been paid. He bought a computer and printer and a programme called “Log me in” which allowed a man called Jason remotely to access the computer and load CA programmes. Singh had sent out some payslips as a favour. He went to Spain where he met Jason and Barry. He now says he feared them as they spoke of causing harm to others when he met them in Spain. However, he agreed to allow their customers to pay money into his account. In the event, more money was paid into his account than he was owed by Confidential Access. It is possible to identify a total of £25,000.00 emanating from Place or CA customers passing through his Nat West account during the middle of 2008 (xp7433-7441). £945.00 was paid to him via Paypal (xp15299).

69 Singh opened an account with 192.com for Jason (JB P641-5). He gave

Jason the password and login details. On 23rd November 2008 five days after his arrest and interview, someone used Singh’s 192.com account, which had been set up on 5th November 2008 in the name Jaipal Singh with a log-in of jai@airwavestelecom.co.uk and an email contact in the same name, to search against the officer in the case DC Xinaris (JB P644)

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whose photograph then appeared on Confidential Access forums. Singh denies (in his Basis of Plea) that this was his doing.

70 There are emails relating to the start up of the Place-Singh relationship (JB

P646-658). Singh shows how careful he was being when Place asks him to collect cash as well as diverting calls (JB P649). Clearly Singh was dealing with Place himself and refers to him as ‘Jason’.

71 All was not as he had portrayed in interview. In fact Singh offered forty-seven

numbers to Confidential Access rather than the six or seven he claimed in his interview. Analysis of the computer records of Singh’s and Thear’s conversations with Place demonstrate their involvement in the printing of bogus identity documents and the laundering of the profits. On 10th June 2008 there is a record of a Trillion conversation between Place and Singh in which different types of paper are discussed for the purposes of printing bogus ID document, bank statements and wage slips (JB P660 and P662-3). Singh offered the services of an accountant who could supply three to four bank accounts with internet banking. Singh said he had told the accountant that they would need bank accounts capable of accepting £40-50,000 per month (JB P665-6). Singh said that his own share would be 10% from which he would pay the accountant approximately £1,000.

72 Singh’s computer (UHS/1) was encrypted with the same software as on

Stringer’s computer. It was cracked and the police recovered a huge number of documents saved in folders identical to those on the computers of Daly and Stringer.

73 Examination of some of the documents shows how raw data in the form of a

list of credits and debits was converted into false bank statements. [Compare raw data at JB P752 with un-headed template at JB P756]

74 Singh gave written instructions to Arun Thear who was working for him during the university holidays (JB P802-813). These instructions demonstrate how the conspiracy works in practice. In these instructions he told Thear that “all accountants references (Richard Braysher) National Chartered (Paul Simmons) KPMG need to go thru to Jason straightaway.” (JB P803) Thear was told, “Never say anything incriminating. Always refer to things as novelty documents.” (JB P803) This document shows that both Singh and Thear knew that what they doing was fraudulent.

75 Arun Thear (DOB 13/02/90 – no previous convictions) is a cousin of Jaipal

Singh’s wife and a student. He worked for Singh for about 3 weeks in the summer holidays of 2008. Singh showed him how to work the computer and produce the documents.

76 Thear’s role was limited. He assisted Singh in the preparation and sending of

documents. Count 6 is limited to the production of payslips. He also assisted Singh in the telephone answering and diverting service that Singh provided to CA. Count 6 is intended to reflect the extent of his role in the events.

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77 Thear was arrested on 29/04/09. When arrested he claimed to have no

knowledge of Confidential Access. However, a Sony laptop which he used had an email store under the address aza152@hotmail.com. Its hard disk contained passport photos and driving licences. Further, his DNA was recovered from the gummed envelope flap of a letter from Confidential Access, the letter sending Russell White the Advanced Credit Profile. (JB P5).

78 In interview he admitted starting to work for Singh when Singh was away. He

printed whatever appeared on the computer. He fielded phone calls. He was paid £6.50 per hour. He spoke to Place if he ever needed assistance whilst Singh was absent. He said he could not see why anyone would want the documents unless they wanted to commit fraud.

79 Confiscation Timetable and other Court Orders.

Malcolm Swift QC Christopher Gillespie 2, Hare Court Temple Date: 26th April 2012