Jail for Cambridgeshire fraudster who scammed victims out of more than £330,000

Aleksejs Fedins, 37, used a forged passport to obtain a UK provisional driving licence and set up various bank accounts to use in the scam and move fraudulent cash.

The fraud involved creating fake transactions on the payment platform between supposed sellers and buyers, before claiming the items paid for did not arrive and pocketing the cash.

This was completed numerous times between 2017 and 2020, with Fedins running hundreds of different accounts.

In total, the money lost by the company in the fraud was £332,834. In February last year officers searched Fedins’ home in Lime Avenue, Wisbech, where hundreds of phones, SIM cards and bank cards were found.

When police arrived at the house they spotted Fedins trying to get rid of some of the documents in his back garden.

Fedins was arrested on suspicion of fraud but in police interview, answered “no comment” to all questions asked of him by officers.

However, he later pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud, possess articles for use in frauds and being concerned in money laundering.

Fedins was sentenced at Peterborough Crown Court on Friday (22 October) where he was handed three years and nine months in prison.

DC Andy Macdonald, who investigated, said: “Fedins thought nothing of using fake documents and defrauding the company out of nearly a third of a million pounds.

“Tackling fraud is a force priority and we will do all we can to bring offenders like this to justice. Hopefully, this case will also serve as a wake-up call to anyone else hoping to turn a profit through deception.”