The High Court has given the green light for the Serious Fraud Office to present claims on behalf of individuals for the money they lost to an email scam two decades ago. The SFO has identified 14 people from around the world with a traceable claim to around £500,000. They were defrauded through unsolicited emails claiming to need help to release substantial sums of money, promising a commission in return. 

The SFO started a criminal investigation in 2002. The fraud was orchestrated, the SFO says, by Abdallah Ali Jammal, who left the UK in 2001 before he could be charged. In 2021, it was determined that Jammal could not be realistically convicted. The arrest warrant for Jammal was withdrawn but his accounts remain frozen. 

Normally, any money recovered by the SFO belongs to the treasury. The SFO described the application to the High Court to be allowed to present claims under the Proceeds of Crime Act on behalf of the victims as a ‘pioneering interpretation of the law’.

The individuals already identified by the SFO, working alongside the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Australian Federal Police and European authorities, have not yet been contacted but it is expected they will recover approximately what was stolen from them more than 20 years ago.

SFO director Lisa Osofsky said: ‘Obtaining justice for victims motivates everything we do. Today, in a pioneering interpretation of the law, we have secured the green light to find Mr Jammal’s victims and, working with our international partners, claim back for them the money they lost.’

The SFO will present the claim on behalf of the victims in the High Court later this year.

 

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