Victims of an email scam are to be compensated more than two decades later after the Serious Fraud Office recovered more than £400,000 from the fraudsters. 

SFO investigators used civil recovery action to reclaim funds which will be returned to nine victims of a fraud committed in 2002. Normally, any recovered money would go to the Treasury.

The SFO began a criminal investigation in 2002 into a fraud it claims was orchestrated by Abdallah Ali Jammal, who had already left the country. In 2021, it was determined that Jammal could not be realistically convicted and the arrest warrant was withdrawn.

Jammal’s accounts were frozen, including over £150,000 bound for the family-controlled Jammal Trust Bank, in Lebanon, which remains sanctioned by the US for facilitating banking for a terrorist organisation. The SFO’s case was not related to terrorism.

In 2023, the SFO was granted permission by the High Court to present claims under the Proceeds of Crime Act on behalf of the victims. This was described by the SFO then as a ‘pioneering interpretation of law’.

The £400,000 recovered relates to money the SFO says was stolen by Jammal, a former director of a retail-depositor bank, who operated a £4.4m email fraud scheme. The 18 victims had been promised shares in money claimed to be locked up in countries such as Nigeria.

At the time of making the High Court application in 2023, the SFO had identified 14 victims. Of those, the SFO has been able to contact nine individuals who were defrauded – three in the UK, five in the US and one in France – and consented to the High Court action. An order was made and sealed earlier this week and the funds will be paid out to victims as soon as possible, the SFO said. 

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The money will be divided on a pro-rata basis with the nine individuals expected to recieve the ‘vast majority’ of their lost funds.

It is the first time the SFO has used the Proceeds of Crime Act in this way, the SFO said.

Nick Ephgrave, SFO director, said: ‘Fraud devastates lives and the SFO will pursue justice for victims using every tool at our disposal. This groundbreaking case demonstrates that determination. After years of complex international investigation, we’re returning stolen money directly to the people who were defrauded.’