02 was duped in a premium phone line scam

MOBILE PROVIDER O2 was conned out of £4.5m in a premium phone line scam that used stolen identities to run up massive bills.

The firm was scammed by five men who bought mobile phones from O2 using the nicked IDs and then sent them abroad. Once the handsets were overseas they were used to call premium phone lines and ran up the huge bills for the mobile firm, according to the Press Association.

Three of the men, Mohammad Butt, Abrar Arshad and Nikhil Jamsandekar have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud, while Abiola Salam and Ade James admitted conspiracy to defraud.

"As far as the acquisition of these Sim cards is concerned they are fraudulently acquired by using the personal data and details of totally innocent persons. The fraudsters acquire these details by whatever means and these identities are used and abused either at retail outlets, or by means of telephone orders or by orders over the internet," said David Hughes, prosecuting.

Hughes said that the men had managed to re-route deliveries sent by O2 using the DHL delivery service, meaning that they did not end up at the addresses to which they were sent.

"The company concerned in this case, O2, have a contract with a well known delivery company, DHL, and telephones ordered on the phone or by the internet are then delivered with their Sim cards by DHL drivers," he explained.

"The fraudsters were able to identify specific post code areas that certain drivers delivered to and they were in effect corrupted. Instead of delivering them to the addresses that would be shown on the packaging they were diverted to the conspirators."

The fraud came to light when the people who were supposed to get the SIM cards started getting rather large bills. O2 then sprang into action, said the prosecutor, and was able to identify which handsets had been used in the fraud. µ