The police force took ownership of the investigation into Narinder Kaur in 2018. (Representational)
An Indian-origin woman was on Tuesday sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment by a court in south-west England after she was found guilty of conning retailers and other businesses out of thousands of pounds.
Narinder Kaur a.k.a. Nina Tiara, 54, was previously found guilty of 26 counts of fraud, money laundering and perverting the course of justice in March 2023.
Prosecutors said she had shoplifted on an industrial scale and deceived shops into refunding her for items that she had never actually purchased. She was sentenced at Gloucestershire Crown Court for stealing from more than 1,000 shops across the UK.
"This sentence today sends out a clear message that West Mercia Police will deal seriously with prolific fraudsters," said Steve Tristram, Fraud Investigator from West Mercia Police's Economic Crime Unit.
"Kaur is a calculated individual who committed offences across the country, dishonestly claiming refunds on items she had stolen. She showed no remorse for her actions and even thought she would get away with submitting false documents to the court with the intention of perverting the course of justice," he said.
The police force took ownership of the investigation into Kaur in 2018 and worked with the UK's National Business Crime Solution, an organisation representing retailers, and other police forces as a "multi-agency approach".
"We were able to investigate further into her criminal activity and found fraudulent activity in her bank accounts which subsequently brought her to justice," added Tristram.
Kaur was found to have travelled extensively across the country to steal from well-known high street stores and then dishonestly claimed refunds on those items.
Between July 2015 and September 2019, it is estimated Kaur netted around GBP 2,000 worth of refunds per week, equating to over half a million pounds in fraudulent refunds and stolen goods.
Knowing that she was under investigation for these offences, she is then said to have embarked upon a scheme to defraud other businesses using the dishonestly obtained credit card details of members of the public.
In March 2023, she was convicted of fraud, possessing and transferring criminal property and perverting the course of justice at Gloucester Crown Court.
At the time, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) West Midlands said that working with the police it was able to use financial data, retail records, witness evidence and CCTV which proved Kaur's pattern of offending.
She was seen on CCTV entering stores, taking items from the shelves and taking them to the tills as if they had been previously purchased. Close examination of her accounts confirmed the pattern of purchases and refunds and that the same process seen on the CCTV was being repeated on hundreds of occasions.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)