Sign in / up

back to article Guilty! Four blokes conned banks in £160m fibre broadband scam

Four men in the UK have been found guilty of swindling Barclays Bank and Belgian banking group KBC out of £160m in a super-fast broadband scam. Total Asset Finance Ltd (TAF), which went into administration in 2011, had been working with H2O Networks to roll out fibre optic cables across Blighty. H2O supplied fibre-optic …

COMMENTS

Post your comment
House rules Send corrections
Add to 'My topics' unstar *
  1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    sounds like a great movie!

    2 0 Reply
  2. Bogle

    if you need a business loan

    I'd never heard of KBC so I looked them up. Perhaps I could just leave this here?

    https://newsroom.kbc.com/if-you-need-a-business-loan-in-24-hours-kbcs-the-bank-for-you

    1 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A few minutes ago the Police revealed the names of the four held in custody:

    BT, Talktalk, Sky and Virgin.

    Apparently Talktalk sang like a bird, BT was also charged with resiting arrest, Sky was found to be high up on apprehension and Virgin was reluctant to own up (to being one).

    6 0 Reply
    1. Alistair
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      @Doc Ock

      Was virgin wearing it's beard disguise again?

      0 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Doc Ock

        >Was virgin wearing it's beard disguise again?

        My police sources can confirm that, however rest assured they did meter out a jolly good bit of police brutality when apprehending the suspect:

        https://res.cloudinary.com/www-virgin-com/f_auto,fl_lossy,q_80/virgin-com-prod/sites/virgin.com/files/rb_bruise_tea.jpg

        They also add that they pissed in the tea.

        0 0 Reply
        1. Crazy Operations Guy
          Reply Icon

          Re: @Doc Ock

          That has got to be the ugliest URL I have ever seen...

          1 0 Reply
  4. frank ly

    Planning ahead

    If you borrow money, someone will want it back one day. Were they detected before they had a chance to grow beards and dye their hair and run away with it? What was their plan?

    0 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Planning ahead

      If they did it over a three year period, it sounds like they had plenty of time to flee the country and disappear. They were too greedy.

      0 0 Reply
      1. P. Lee
        Reply Icon

        Re: Planning ahead

        Best send it all to Russia and claim you were hacked.

        0 0 Reply
  5. Herby

    Two words...

    Equity Funding.

    As the saying goes: "To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer."

    0 0 Reply
  6. Flakk

    Stringing cabling through the sewer.

    Perhaps their punishment should be to personally make good on their fraudulent business model?

    1 0 Reply
  7. Old Shoes

    In this 2008 article H2O is mentioned, heralding their project, along with a comment from the recently cleared Elfred Thomas:

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/08/bournemouth_fibre_city/

    In this 2011 article they are mentioned as running into problems and being investigated by SFO:

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/22/no_sewer_fibre_for_brisbane/

    1 0 Reply

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

Forgotten password ?

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like