A woman from Potters Bar was given a 26 month prison sentence after defrauding an elderly couple out of £164,000. Her partner was given a six month suspended sentence for defrauding the couple out of £10,000.
Raheleh Azimi, age 22, of Sandringham Road in Potters Bar, met the couple at a church in Swindon when she was aged 10 after moving to the UK from Iran. They became friends with her and her father and the couple bought her clothes for school.
“When she was aged 16, she moved to London and started making requests for money for rent. She called the couple pretending to be the landlady demanding money and rent arrears,” said Detective Sergeant Dan Osborne from the Borehamwood Local Crime Unit. “She asked for money to go on holiday to Iran and blatantly lied about her passport being stolen and pretended she had to travel to Turkey. The couple sent her £8,000. On another occasion, she said she needed £50,000 after a car crash – £10,000 for the car insurance and £40,000 to replace the car. When the couple went to the bank to withdraw this money, the bank became suspicious and contacted police.”
In addition, she asked for money for her college fees, which were free; for a psychiatrist, which was made up, and, £26,000 for a deposit on a fictitious property.
He said: “She was unscrupulous in her demands and put pressure on the couple by getting someone to pretend to be a psychiatrist.”
Azimi’s partner, Hamed Ranjibar, age 30, also of Sandringham Road in Potters Bar, pleaded not guilty, but was convicted of defrauding £10,000 from the couple. The deceit spanned five or six years when the couple were in their late 80s – they are now in their 90s. Ranjibar was convicted and Azimi sentenced on Thursday February 25th at St Albans Crown Court.
Sergeant Osborne added: “Azimi was a shopaholic who loved buying jewellery, clothes and cars and recklessly spent the couple’s money. She created a web of lies and conned this elderly couple out of their life savings. I think the sad thing is that the couple wanted to help them but they took that trust and completely betrayed it. They would have helped them buy a house, get an education, in short look after them for the rest of their lives – but instead they lied to get vast sums of money, which they appear to have wasted.”
Azimi and Ranjibar were also given restraining orders not to contact the couple, to protect them from harassment by the offenders.