Two brothers have been jailed for defrauding £2m from “unsuspecting, ordinary, busy” people who were tricked into thinking they needed to pay for European health insurance cards (Ehics).
Damien Sartip Zadeh, 32, was jailed for nine and a half years and his brother Dale, 35, got eight years after being found guilty of fraudulent trading and laundering the proceeds between February 2013 and October 2019.
Their parents, Mahmud and Diane Sartip Zadeh, 62 and 60, were found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years.
The elaborate scam involved a computer program pushing their misleading websites to the top of internet search results so that people were tricked into needlessly paying for an Ehic.
National Trading Standards, which led the investigation, said websites set up by the brothers were “a front for a clever cut-and-paste job”, with customers’ details simply copied over into the free NHS website form.
NTS said Damien Sartip Zadeh was also convicted of engaging in aggressive commercial practices by threatening people who complained.
The judge Penny Belcher said that when consumers realised they had been scammed and tried to get refunds, “thoroughly aggressive and nasty threats” were used.
Michael Bichard, the chair of NTS, said: “This was a case of serious and organised fraud where large sums were taken from unsuspecting, ordinary, busy people and the sites were a scam from start to finish.”
The sentences were handed out to the Sunderland family at Leeds crown court on Monday.
NTS investigators test-bought Ehics through a fraudulent site that had the URL ehic-cards.org.uk, with fictional “check and send” and fast-track functions.
The site had a similar colour and background to NHS and government websites and was aimed at misleading consumers into thinking they were using official channels.
Guy Parker, the chief executive of the Advertising Standards Authority, welcomed the sentencing and said the scams could have affected anyone “from the vulnerable to the tech savvy”.
He said: “It sends a clear signal to bogus operators behind misleading websites that fraudulent practices will be met with the force of the law. The scale of and the aggressive practices behind this scam are a reminder to everyone about the need to be vigilant when making online purchases.”
The brothers have also been disqualified from being company directors for 10 years. Their father was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work and was disqualified from being a director for five years.
Ehics were issued free of charge by the government allowing people to access medically necessary state-provided healthcare when visiting an EU country or Switzerland. They have since been replaced by the global health insurance card (GHIC).
