Ladies & Gentlemen, glad to see people are pulling back from swipes at each other. ODB_69 thanks for the vouch. DarenD as a quick overview I spent hundreds of hours on various sites where the Ainsworths actively placed their fraudulent ads, reporting them 24/7 to the relevant companies, collating information on their fraudulent ads, sites, email addresses and known bank account details which were obtained from the Ainsworths. The bank account details allowed the police to arrest and charge 50 of the Ainsworth's associates with money laundering and also led the police to identify far more victims to obtain complainant statements. Some of the 50 associates then provided evidence against the Ainsworth's which is partially why they pleaded guilty coupled with some of the corroborative evidence initially provided by us.
We also worked closely with with Gumtree to help reduce and impact on the Ainswoth activity with external access to their systems with what was referred to as the 'Silver Bullet', which allowed us to delete fraudulent adverts outside their Gumtree operating hours. The UK operation closed at 5pm, and as soon as it did up came their fraudulent ads, so in effect we were externally policing their site. As a result of meetings and fraud workshops we had with Gumtree European team they opened a 24/7 fraud team in Malta.
Where the Ainsworth's also opened fraudulent sites we had them closed down as quickly as possible with the exception of one, as the ISP provider didn't act. We also trained their fraud team and help desk operators on spotting Ainsworth adverts and kept them up to date on their latest modus operandi. This for me was over an 18 month period before I pulled back due to frustration with Gumtree.
So yes it can be said that I played an active role in the case against them and their subsequent convictions. Now I have mentioned the 'we' word quite a bit above, with the other main person involved being FRAUDREPORTER. He has and no doubt will continue to identify and reduce / impact on the Ainsworth's adverts and still has direct 'live' access to Gumtree fraud team in sunny Malta.
Where he has posted bank account information the source is from emails from the perpetrators asking for bank transfer payment. Historically this information was posted on here and Gumtree Fraud Forum which unfortunately no longer exists. Together with a consolidated email list of known & confirmed email addresses they have used. Quite often this information was posted within a matter of minutes of an advert going live on Gumtree. This allowed individuals searching Google to identify this forum and confirm their suspicions that they had been conned but also give them a link to the investigating team at Staffordshire as if they reported it to their local police there was no joined up approach to their crime and the potential scale. As it was the case that was put against them did not cover off a large element of their fraud, if it had, then they may still be behind bars.
FRAUDBUSTER was also the first person that I know to identify that they were out of prison and back to their old tricks. If moderators no longer want bank information posted then they can contact him direct and he will stop doing so.
Apologies for the long winded response but obviously have to get my post count up as I have been slacking recently.