- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
Four men were jailed earlier this month for fleecing pensioners out of £750K.
Harpreet Singh Randhawa, Harvinder Singh Arora, Mahmoddun Nobi Siddique, and Vytautas Glinshas were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering and were jailed for 18 years on October 11.
The men, working for Randhwana Roofing Ltd, were found guilty following a major Brent and Harrow Trading Standards investigation revealed that they cold called and bullied victims to pay huge sums for unnecessary roofing work.
The jobs were either not carried out or done to a poor standard, it was revealed.
The company owned by Harpreet Singh Randhawa came under the watch of Trading Standards in 2017 where two Harrow homeowners, aged 84 and 86, were conned to make payments totalling £350,000. An investigation unearthed several other victims in Enfield, Haringey and Bromley.
The investigation supported by the National Trading Standards eCrime team also discovered that the victim’s money was transferred out of the UK to Dubai, China and Singapore.
Cllr Varsha Parmar, Harrow Council’s cabinet member for environment, said: “These heartless criminals preyed on vulnerable people, bullied them to hand over their life’s savings and left them with a shoddy roof – or even nothing at all. I cannot imagine the stress and nightmare their despicable actions caused.
“Thanks to the hard work of our trading standards officers, we brought an end to their rogue practices and I hope victims feel a sense of relief that these crooks will be spending time behind bars.”
Simon Legg, head of Brent and Harrow Trading Standards, said the men were motivated by greed and had no interest in completing the works or cared about the immense stress they caused their victims and families.
“Cases like this emphasise the importance of not agreeing work with trades people who cold call and to do your research before commencing any work,” said Legg.
