A couple in Islington were scammed after they were offered fraudulent financial investment returns between January and May 2018 in excess of £230,000.
Haydee Daniel, 55 (13.01.68), of Valley Road, Henley-on-Thames, was sentenced to four and a half years’ imprisonment at Wood Green Crown Court on Thursday, 26 October.
She was found guilty on Tuesday, 24 October following a four-week trial at the same court.
PC Evan Mcloughlin, from the Met’s Economic Crime Unit, said: “The impact of this crime on the victims is absolutely shocking. Daniel masterminded a sophisticated and convincing investment fraud to take advantage of vulnerable victims on a large scale. The money was used to fund a lavish and extravagant lifestyle, showing complete contempt for the victims.
“Daniel felt no remorse for what she put the victims though. She even tried for more than three years to postpone her trial by faking numerous medical conditions at great expense to the National Health Service.”
Detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime’s Economic Crime Team began investigating the scam in 2019.
The court heard how Daniel befriended a couple with a young, ill child and showed them that she lived a lavish lifestyle.
She told the victims that she could get them cheap properties from Barclays bank through a fictitious contact she made up. Daniel, acting as the fake contact, convinced the victims that their credit ratings were too low to purchase the properties and that Daniel would have to act as their guarantor.
She then told the victims that they would have to prove that they had enough money to pay off the mortgage during periods when they were not earning. The contact then told them that they should send money to a bank account set up by Daniel.
They were assured that money would be ring-fenced and then returned to them once the contact was satisfied that they would be financially able to pay back any loans.
The contact convinced them to make several payments in to the “ring-fence account”. These payments came to a total of £230,496. In reality the money was not ring-fenced and Daniel would spend it almost immediately on luxury rentals and goods, or send it to other people she knew.
The victims were left destitute and heavily in debt to their family, who they had borrowed money from, believing it would be available again once the deal went through.
In their impact statement the victims said that the loss of over £230,000 was not a mere number; it represented the theft of their security, aspirations for the future, and their child’s well-being. They explained that the constant stress and anxiety caused by Daniel’s actions had affected every aspect of their life.
As part of the elaborate plan, Daniel also lied to the victims by telling them that she had cervical cancer and only had 18 months to live. She claimed that she wanted to help them make a better life for themselves before she died.
Daniel had actually been cured of her cancer in the 1990s and was at the time of the offence, and still is, cancer free.
Officers were able to confirm the fictitious contact was Daniel as the phone’s location showed it has always been used in the vicinity of her home address.
When examining Daniel’s phone they also discovered that both she and the contact left the WhatsApp group with the victim’s two hours before her police interview.
Despite her attempts to cover her tracks, officers were able to recover over 1000 pages of WhatsApp messages between the victims and Daniel.
Officers read through these conversations regarding the property purchase which showed that the victims fully believed they would get four properties after sending their money.
