A GANG who stole customer details across Surrey and Hampshire to make fraudulent transactions totalling £100,000, have been jailed for more than 10 years.

Investigators from Surrey Police serious and organised crime unit and financial investigation unit identified more than 70 victims and more than 300 fraudulent transactions by the gang, which was active from 2012 through to 2014.

A sixth man is awaiting sentencing.

Guildford Crown Court heard Arslan Saghir, 25, and Iqra Hussain, 25, stole sensitive customer details, while working at Vodafone stores across Surrey and Hampshire, and also Manchester, where Iqra was studying law at university.

While processing customer details for an upgrade, the pair would press ‘print screen’ before submitting a credit check.

They passed a screen grab, containing the victim’s personal data, to Woking-based Kamran Hussain, 31, and brothers Zain and Faheem Ali Khan, aged 25 and 23 respectively.

The three men used the data to commit identity fraud – draining their victims’ bank accounts, taking out credit and contracts in the victim’s name, and stealing their money.

The men bought background checks on their victims, using card details stolen from other victims, and Faheem called telephone banking pretending to be the victims, transferring money from savings, and extending overdrafts.

Having emptied the victim’s accounts, the men took a payday loan in their victims’ names and used that to extract even more money.

Faheem also used the stolen details to take out expensive mobile phone contracts with a Carphone Warehouse telesales call centre, using the sixth defendant Hassan Hussain, 27, who worked for the mobile phone giant as an inside man.

The phones were delivered to the fraudsters home addresses in Woking and probably sold on.

The gang used their ill-gotten gains to fund a life of luxury, buying expensive clothes and jewellery, and booking hotel rooms for nights away.

Detective Inspector Matt Durkin said: “This gang were fast and thorough – they’d empty their victims’ bank accounts within a couple of days, then take out further credit in the name of their victims and attempt to extract that as well.

“I want to pay tribute to the meticulous work of investigating officer Steve Pott and financial investigator Graham Parker who investigated this case. Every victim had to be identified and interviewed, and every line of fraud had to be cross-checked with the victims and the businesses that were targeted.

“Time and again the delivery addresses, telephone numbers and internet IP addresses came back to Zain, Faheem and Kamran.”

The Crown Prosecution Service’s Helen Ellwood said: “There was a large volume of compelling IT evidence in this case, which helped the CPS to prove that all the defendants were complicit with the fraud and all had either obtained or used people’s identities as part of this deception.

“Some of the defendants worked in shops serving the public and taking private information from them, including their credit card and bank details. None of the victims expected such details to then be passed to others for fraudulent use, and this was a gross breach of the trust customers had placed in them.”

The Crown’s counsel, Graham Smith and Carolina Cabral, provided key support to the investigators in preparing the complex case for court, which led to unanimous verdicts from the jury on the three men that went to trial.

Arslan Saghir, of Bentham Avenue, Woking, pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, and was found guilty at Guildford Crown Court. He was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court to 30 months’ imprisonment.

Faheem Ali Khan, of Kingsway, Woking, pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

He was found guilty at Guildford Crown Court and is awaiting sentencing at a later date.

Hassan Hussain, of Leywick Street, London, pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

He was found guilty at Guildford Crown Court and was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court to 30 months’ imprisonment for the first count, and given 20 months’ inside for the second count to run concurrently.

Kamran Hussain, of Board School Road, Woking, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation at Guildford Crown Court.

He was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court to 21 months’ imprisonment for the first count and four months behind bars for the second count to run concurrently.

Iqra Hussain, of Onslow Crescent, Woking, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation at Guildford Crown Court. She was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court to six months’ jail.

Zain Ali Khan, of Kingsway, Woking, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation at Guildford Crown Court. He was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court to three years in prison.