Abdulaziz Ahmed, admitted he was part of the ‘Bank of Terror’ gang who conned elderly people out of their life savings in order to plough funds into the depraved death cult.
The 23-year-old posed as a police officer or a bank fraud official as he played his part in taking money from at least 18 victims in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Bedfordshire, London and Kent.
Ahmed himself was involved in collecting £35,000 from Patricia Burnham, 75, who was told by Ahmed – who identified himself as “PC Jenkins from Portsmouth Police Station” – that she should take out her entire life savings to stop them from being stolen.
Mrs Burnham lost all of her savings which have now been used to fund the bloodthirsty terror cult.
She said an impact statement: “They came to us at an opportune time. I was getting increasingly worried about access to money for a nursing home for my husband.
“I was extremely concerned we could lose all our savings and we just believed what PC Jenkins told us.
“My husband unfortunately passed away just two weeks after I handed the last package over to the courier. It is terribly sad that our last memories together were overshadowed by this horrible situation.”
The 18 victims identified lost a total of £576,000 between May 2014 and summer 2015 with a further £69,000 worth of dealings were stopped by police.
But the callous fraudsters pocketed another £328,000 from victims which was never identified.
Detectives dubbed the group a “Bank of Terror” and say some of the cash went to Syria to support ISIS.
Victims as old as 96 were conned by the scam as other fraudsters spent money on designer cloths and a flight to Los Angeles.
Other gang members included Mohamed Dahir, 23, who was supported by a letter from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Nathan Fagan-Gayle, 29, who appeared on the ninth series of the X-Factor.
Fagan-Gayle, who played with pop bands such as JLS, The Wanted and N-Dubz, withdrew £15,000 in cash from his victim.
Other conmen included Sakaria Aden, 22, Yasser Abukar, 24, Makhzumi Abukar, 28, Ahmed Ahmed, 23, Fahim Islam, 21, Anrul Islam, 24, and 30-year-old Warsame Sheik.
Richard Walton, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “This callous group of criminals stole vast sums of money from extremely vulnerable and elderly people from across the country.
“We uncovered this fraud after a separate terrorist investigation found suspicious payments into a bank account of an individual who is now believed to have travelled to Syria.”
Ahmed, of Camden, northwest London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud between May 1, 2014 and May 7, 2015.
He will be sentenced tomorrow morning, Express reported.
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