A Scots pensioner who preyed on other elderly people as part a phone scam based in India has been jailed for 21 months.
Callous Robert Adams, 74, was involved in fleecing two men, one then aged 89 and the other now deceased, of more than £53,000.
Adams had already been left homeless after selling his Rosyth home to pay back compensation when he returned to Dunfermline Sheriff Court yesterday and was jailed for 21 months.
He was part of an international phone scam that targeted the vulnerable. Victims were hooked by the promise they were owed money but were then told they had to pay fees to get their hands on it.
Adams claimed 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 per cent and the rest was sent on.
The victims were bombarded with instructions to send higher and higher sums but by the time their money ran out, they had seen nothing of the promised refunds.
In July Adams, then of Admiralty Road, Rosyth, 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.
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.
Mr Dalglish received a phone call in March 2013 from a man with an Indian accent.
He was told he was owed money from his PayPal account and afterwards received a refund of $475.
After this he was told he was owed more but would first have to pay in money to free up those sums.
He paid a total of £37,270 but when he asked about his promised settlement, was told there had been a “mix-up”. In the end, Mr Sharp ran out of money and contacted the police.
During investigations, staff at the Bank of Scotland in Dunfermline said they became suspicious about the large withdrawals being made by Adams and contacted their internal fraud department.
Adams initially denied being involved but eventually admitted he had been recruited to act as a collection agent.
Adams admitted the money had been “helpful to make ends meet” and that he had profited by £4,700.
He told police that he had been the victim of the phone scammers and felt he had little choice but to collect money for them as he believed they had control over his computer.
Defence solicitor Ian Beatson said his client was “deeply ashamed” of his actions and was now living in a hostel in Kirkcaldy after selling his home. The solicitor handed over a cheque to the court for £53,120.88 for compensation to the victims.
Sheriff Craig McSherry jailed Adams for 21 months but the Crown is still pursuing a proceeds of crime action against him, believing he benefited by more than £82,000.
Mr Dalglish, who is now 91, told The Courier last night: “I was pleased that they managed to catch the culprit. I never met Mr Adams, it was all done through the phone. At least the sentence lets him know he shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing.
“It will certainly be nice if I get recompensed to some extent that would be very good. At one period, I did think I would never see anything, at all.”