Four men have been arrested in England on suspicion of running a telephone scam that may have made as much as £6 million. Consumers were told that they had won an expensive prize; but they had to call a premium rate number to claim it.
Two men from Cambridge and two from Basingstoke were arrested last Thursday as officers from the City of London Police searched six premises in Cambridge, Basingstoke and North London, seizing a large number of computer records and files.
Four other men were arrested in May in connection with the investigation which was run by the economic crime department of the City of London Police with assistance from the Serious Fraud Office and the premium rate regulator, ICSTIS (the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services).
The scam resulted in expensive telephone bills for the "winners" – but few, if any, ever saw a prize, according to the police.