Grandpa-conning crook jailed over sugar-coated drug scam

A ruthless cyber conman who duped elderly pensioners – including an 80-year-old man – into smuggling deadly class A drugs was this week locked up. Tonny Iheoma Ezeh, 51, cruelly tricked vulnerable email scam victims into believing they had hit the jackpot and convinced them they had to travel abroad to collect their cash. The …

[Eclectic Man]

I am not convinced that 9 years and 3 months is really enough, what with all the early releases from over full UK prisons these days. I also wonder what would have happened to the pensioners had they got to Hong Kong in anticipation of their prizes.

[Spazturtle]

I fully support just hanging people like this, their 'contribution' to society is unwanted.

[Anonymous Coward]

.. really, really slowly.

Or, alternatively, mandatory intake of what they smuggle for a week so they get properly addicted themselves.

Drugs don't just ruin lives, they ruin societies.

[Pascal Monett]

Reminds of something

Let me see, elderly men, drug mule, something with Clint Eastwood is persisting in the back of my mind . . . ah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

class A drugs

Is the UK the only jurisdiction that uses what normally be interpreted as a quality classification to denote the hazard of particular illegal drugs?

Fortunate that the old codgers didn't sample the chocolate truffles ... I shouldn't imagine they would become much older if they had.

Didn't mention why German pensioners? English ones too daft or too thin on the ground after Boris' and Sunak's superior handling of COVID?

[PRR]

Re: class A drugs

> Is the UK the only jurisdiction that uses what normally be interpreted as a quality classification to denote the hazard of particular illegal drugs?

US likes Roman Numerals. I is Horse, V is codeine: https://www.dea.gov/drug-information/drug-scheduling

State of Massachusetts goes by letters A to E in unclear categories: https://www.rsweeneylaw.com/massachusetts-drug-crimes/illegal-drugs-and-related-penalties-in-massachus/

[ivorb]

Re: class A drugs

To be sufficiently pedantic it's the _Commonwealth_ of Massachusetts. It's still on of the 50 'main' states but like a few others (Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky) prefers to be thought of as a special. At least it's not Texas. (Texans love to mention that TX is a republic and therefore they're special in some way)

[Cheese_Conquistador]

I'm sorry but my "this is very odd" detector is going off.

Two elderly pensioners scammed into paid trip to Mexico and onward paid trip to Hong Kong carrying chocolates for cash reward.

I somehow doubt they were duped. I could understand if they paid for the trip to Mexico which has not been stated so I'm going to assume they didn't.

Very odd indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an elderly mum who I'm pretty sure has just been conned by ruthless landscaper.

He charged £3000 to cover 20 sqm of flags (without removing flags) in weed matting and stones to a depth of 2 inch

.

can I get some confirmation thats a total con , or is it just me thinking that ?

[Apocalypso - a cheery end to the world]

That's a total con. Max £300 for the materials. Max £300 for labour - and that's being generous.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

I'd tend to agree. I was building a small shed about 12 months ago, base was loose stone poured to about that depth or slightly more, into a plastic grid frame. From memory we used 8 25kg "handypacks" at about £4.50 a pop to fill an area of 35 sq ft. Took around 20 mins for two of us to do, probably half of which was simply lugging the bags round to where we were building the shed.

Scaling up by a factor of six gets the cost of stones to around £220 but a one tonne bulk pack would be well under half that. Add at most £30 for HIAB delivery from a local supplier.

Our weed matting came with the plastic base but the same supplier we got the stones from has 10m² rolls for under £12.

Half a man day's labour at £50/hr self employed rates, yes the above estimate looks generous. So with no knowledge of the location or stones used you can't say for certain but certainly worth a closer look.

[Sandtitz]

@Mr. Elpuss

"Another fine, upstanding British chap."

Who, the NCA operation manager Peter Jones? I'm sure he was just doing his job.

The offender is Nigerian and the sexa- and octogenarians are from Germany.

[Extreme Aged Parent]

Would some kind person explain to me why we are keeping this person in a centrally healed room with full meals use of a gym and personal tv.

The Victorians had it about right, hard labour with hard tack, and minimal heating, balls and chains and I am in favour of bringing back hanging, but only after they've a mountain of granite rubble for British Rail.