Covid fraudsters spent thousands on cars and watches

Three people stood in a Leicester courtroom on Wednesday and heard themselves named as fraudsters who had exploited the desperation of a pandemic. Jogesh Bhandari, fifty-nine, and Craig Morris, forty-three, were convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation. Meenakashi Bhandari, forty-eight, was found guilty of concealing criminal property. What they had done was simple in its cruelty: they had promised millions of boxes of nitrile gloves to hospitals and businesses starving for protective equipment, taken millions of dollars, and delivered nothing.

The National Crime Agency traced the money. It moved through bank accounts and into lives of sudden luxury. Jogesh Bhandari spent £126,000 on a new Porsche. He and his wife, Meenakashi, who lived together on Mitchell Drive in Loughborough, Leicestershire, bought Rolex watches and jewellery. They took expensive holidays. They renovated their kitchen. The cash kept flowing because the scheme kept working—at least for a while.

The operation had begun in November 2020, when Jogesh agreed to supply twelve million boxes of gloves. A company paid into an escrow account, the kind of arrangement meant to hold money safely until both sides fulfilled their obligations. But the money never stayed in escrow. It went straight to Jogesh and to Frank Labruzzo, a US assistant attorney general in Louisiana who provided the fraudulent escrow service itself. A month later, another $2.7 million arrived. Nearly half a million dollars was withdrawn to pay off debts. In early 2021, Jogesh received more than $3.18 million for an order of gloves destined for American hospitals. The gloves never arrived.

The partnership between Jogesh and Morris was documented in forty-seven thousand WhatsApp messages. Morris, who lived in Lancashire, had seen the opportunity clearly. "All over the news is all about ppe shortage," he wrote. "Let's clean up!! Milk it… fill ya boots." Jogesh replied with a thumbs-up emoji and a philosophy: it was about teamwork and everyone making money. Later, when Jogesh sent Morris a picture of a Rolls-Royce, he added a note: if he wanted one of those, they would need to keep going. Morris had expected regular payments of five thousand pounds. The arrangement lasted until the end of 2021, when the two men fell out.

To make the scheme work, Jogesh had supplied forged documents to potential suppliers—bank statements showing up to $125 million in assets, letters of attestation designed to convince legitimate businesses that he was credible. In his final deal, he received $1.35 million straight into his business account. He sent £200,000 to Morris and bought himself another Porsche.

All three were arrested in February 2023. They are due to be sentenced on August 21st. Paul Boniface, operations manager at the National Crime Agency, described what had happened as exploitation at the moment of maximum vulnerability. "Bhandari and his co-conspirators capitalised on these vulnerabilities by exploiting people and businesses for their own financial gain," he said. The fraud had diverted equipment away from genuine organisations. The effects, he noted, reached far beyond the immediate financial losses to the businesses that had been deceived. Labruzzo, the American official who had provided the fraudulent escrow service, was convicted in the United States alongside one other person.