A crooked pensioner involved in an international phone scam that preyed on other elderly victims is selling his home to pay compensation.
Robert Adams, 74, of Rosyth, who was part of an India-based fraudulent scheme, had previously had his sentence deferred to consider whether he was prepared to put his home on the market to pay back more than £53,000 obtained from two victims.
One man was aged 89 and the other, now deceased, was 69. In his case, compensation would be paid to his estate.
Adams returned to Dunfermline Sheriff Court on Wednesday to confirm that he would sell his home. He said he acted as a collection agent for the criminals in India behind the scam. When the victims’ money was paid into his account, he kept 10% and the rest was sent on.
The victims were hooked by the promise that they were owed money but were told they had to pay sums initially to get their hands on it.
They were bombarded with instructions to send higher and higher sums but by the time their money ran out, they had seen nothing of the refunds.
Some of the money was transferred to India while other payments went into Adams’ own account.
Adams, of Admiralty Road, previously admitted that on various occasions between April 1 2012 and October 13 2013 at the Bank of Scotland, Bothwell Street, Dunfermline, and at his home, while acting with others, he formed a fraudulent scheme to obtain money.
In pursuance of that scheme he pretended on various occasions to William Dalglish, then 89, and John Sharp, then 67 and now deceased, that they were owed monies but to obtain it they required first to make payments.
Adams induced Mr Dalglish to transfer a total of £5,860.88 to a person in India and then to send cheques to the value of £9,990 to him.
He also induced the late Mr Sharp to transfer sums totalling £37,270 to an account in the name of Robert Adams, when he knew neither man was entitled to any money and obtained a total of £53,120.88 by fraud.
Defence agent Jenny Simpson said the house was being put on the market immediately. It is estimated there is around £53,000 in equity in the property but her client also had credit card debts of around £15,000, she added.
Sheriff Charles Macnair further deferred sentence until September 16 to monitor progress on the house sale.