'Ferociously greedy' fraudster family tricked pensioners in a £1.3million

• Gang phoned up victims and told them they had been targeted by a scam
• They then hijacked the victims' calls to their bank to get their savings
• Gang blew the proceeds on expensive goods and holidays to Dubai
• Judge says family was 'rife with criminality' and 'united by greed'

A family of fraudsters who tricked pensioners out of £1.3million which they spent on expensive cars and watches were today jailed for over twenty years.

The 'ferociously greedy' Mohammed family cold-called victims posing as fraud advisers from Visa or high-street banks and saying they had been targeted in a scam.

Led by Atif Mohammed, 25, the family then invited their victim to hang up and redial their own bank's fraud team themselves to gain their trust.

But they stayed on the line, intercepted the return call and either put on a fake voice or handed the phone to another family member to pose as a legitimate bank official.

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Atif Mohammed (left) and his cousin Asif Ali (right) ran a phone scam which stole the savings of pensioners

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Shabeer (left) and Shakeel Ahmed (right) were also took part in the con, which saw people phoned up and told they had been targeted by fraudsters and encouraged to pay money into a bank account

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Call centre worker Zoe Latif (left) gave the gang victim's details. Atif's mother Shameem Ali Mohammed (right) had stolen property

At least 42 elderly and vulnerable people from across the UK were encouraged to transfer their savings - up to £129,000 in one case - into another bank account.

The fraudsters then spent the money 'like water' - on luxury cars including a yellow Lamborghini Gallardo, a white Land Rover, a Ferrari and a Mercedes, Bristol Crown Court heard.

It also funded designer bags, gold, expensive watches, gambling ventures and trips abroad, including repeat visits to Dubai where they bought a house.

The Mohammeds, originally from Pakistan, called thousands of people using dozens of phones over 13 months as part of the 'vishing' - voice phishing - scam between December 2013 and January 2015.

Most of the victims will never get their money back because banks view such incidents - where people willingly transfer money - as their own fault.

Seven members of the family, from Glasgow, were jailed for between two and six years each this week.

Sentencing them, Judge Barry Cotter QC said: 'Those who fell for it tended to be the more unworldly and naive.

'Whilst they were not specifically targeted as vulnerable, it is obvious that it was people who did not have a suspicion that many people would have who were victims.'

The judge added that the family was 'rife with criminality' and 'united by ferocious greed'.

'The way in which the money was spent will make it even harder for victims to swallow. You frittered money away,' he said.

'It was a high life lived on the hard-earned money of others, the sweat and toil of other people, by you, the most dishonest of people.'

The con artists were eventually caught in November 2014. Police raided their six-bed mansion, finding 41 mobile phones, 57 sim cards and dozens of phone numbers scrawled on a wall.

In Shameem's bedroom they found £100,000 in cash, hidden under the bed and in a false partition in her wardrobe, along with DKNY handbags and receipts for gold.

One victim, Marian Hodges, of Salisbury, Wiltshire, said she was 'shattered' after being scammed out of £84,000 in life savings on April Fool's Day 2014.

Another victim, an 87-year-old man, whose wife is dying of cancer, said: 'I felt such a fool to be duped in this way.'

Ringleader Atif Mohammed, 25, was jailed for six years for his pivotal role in the plot, which is thought to have raked in far more than the proven £1.3million.

His cousin, father-of-two Asif Ali, 33, who has 24 previous convictions and was also involved in a separate mortgage fraud, was jailed for five years and ten months.

Their cousins, brothers Shabeer Ahmed, 25 and Shakeel Ahmed, 21, were jailed for five years and two months and three and a half years respectively.

The four relatives had previously admitted conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

Atif's brother, Saif Mohammed, 21, admitted money laundering and was jailed for one year.

Call centre worker 26-year-old Zoe Latif, who handed over the victims' details, was handed a nine month sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting encouraging or assisting indictable offences.

Atif and Saif's mother Shameem Ali Mohammed, 44, was found guilty of possessing criminal property and was jailed for two years