A man and a woman were sentenced to 16 years between them following the theft of more than £200,000 from members of the public.
Derek Moore, 42, received 13 years and six months while Julie Ann McQuade was sentenced to two years and six months for offences that include fraud, theft and impersonating a police office.
Both offenders pled guilty to the fraudulent scheme on Friday, May 31 and were sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday.
The investigation was launched by officers in Ayrshire and led to their arrests after properties in Hamilton and Rutherglen were raided in February 2022.
Moore and McQuade called members of the public pretending to be police officers alerting them to fraudulent activity on their account. In the phone call, they would ask personal questions claiming they were for security reasons and that allowed the pair access to the bank account they were looking to get into.
Read More:
- Pensioner dies after being struck by van at Scottish holiday park
-
Police Scotland's Chief Constable 'no plans' to meet with murdered banker's family
In total, they were responsible for the theft of more than £214,000 from members of the public across Scotland with police revealing they targeted elderly and vulnerable members of the community.
Detective Inspector Ross Black, who led the inquiry, branded them ‘despicable’ for their actions as he urged people to contact their banks if have any doubts about phone calls they receive.
He said: “Moore and McQuade targeted the elderly and vulnerable members of our communities, and it is right that they will now face the consequence of their despicable actions.
"We want to take this opportunity to remind members of the public to be aware of scams and take precautions to avoid becoming a victim.
“These scams are not always easy to spot and anyone can be fooled. These criminals are experts at impersonating people, organisations, and the police. Often they have details about a person they shouldn’t convincing people they are legitimate.
“If in doubt hang up and contact the bank using the phone number on the back of your card or official paperwork. If the caller is genuine, they will understand your hesitation, don’t feel pressured to handing over details or withdrawing money.”
Anyone who thinks they may have fallen victim to a scam is asked to contact 101.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel