A fraudster from Swansea is going back to jail after failing to pay back profits from a nationwide mobile phone insurance scam that duped thousands.
Christopher John Surman has been sentenced to more than four years and two months in prison for not paying in full the £482,047 that the court ordered him to shell out, the
South Wales Evening Post reported.
Surman’s lawyer told the Swansea Magistrates Court that since his previous release from prison, the fraudster had been doing all he could to pay the bill, including selling his properties.
However, this did not convince the court to postpone Surman’s sentence as it heard that the fraudster still owes the authorities £420,691.
Surman and his co-conspirators operated a bogus call centre in Swansea and tricked mobile phone users across the UK, according to the
Daily Mail.
The fraudsters posed as employees of phone giants O2 and Orange and sold customers discounted insurance packages.
Nine people, including Surman, were arrested and charged in 2012 following a major investigation by South Wales Police.
Surman and the other insurance scammers pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud in 2014 and first received their jail terms.
“Around 3,000 people across Britain were conned in the fraud,”
Wales Online quoted a prosecutor as saying during the opening of the case in 2014.
“It contributed to the erosion of confidence in the industry by members of the public,” he added.
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