Azeem Mohammed

Introduction

Azeem Mohammed is a 35-year-old serial fraudster whom Lord Arthurson described in court as “a serial and committed fraudster, or, in modern parlance, a professional scammer”. At the High Court in Glasgow, Mohammed tendered guilty pleas to eight charges of fraud committed in concert with another or others against elderly and highly vulnerable complainers between January 2022 and February 2024, taking an agreed total of £1,163,269, and was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. Lord Arthurson called the case, regarded as a whole, “in cumulo one of the worst frauds of this nature to come before these courts”, noting that the victims were aged 86, 89, 88, 77, 82, 85, 84 and 79 .

Background Information

The fraud campaign ran for just over two years, with individual sums obtained from the complainers ranging from £19,500 up to £333,292. Around £295,000 of the money taken was never reimbursed by the financial institutions involved, and the court noted that the burden of the reimbursed portion fell in practice on those institutions and indirectly the public . One of the victims has since died; he and his family lost a non-reimbursed figure of £45,900. Mohammed was already a convicted fraudster of long standing: he had custodial sentences for sheriff-and-jury-level fraud convictions in 2013 and for a fraudulent scheme in 2026, and in October 2024 he was convicted at Manchester Crown Court for a series of frauds against elderly victims totalling £958,949, for which he received six years and nine months, reduced from a headline sentence of nine years, with a theoretical earliest date of liberation of 9 November 2027 .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Admitted a £1.16 million fraud campaign against eight elderly victims; jailed ten years.

At a preliminary hearing Mohammed pleaded guilty to all eight charges, perpetrated in concert with another or others upon elderly and highly vulnerable complainers. The court described the operation as a “targeted and predatory criminal campaign” with multiple very real victims and exactly quantifiable loss, and heard that in the case of charge four Mohammed sent abusive messages to his victim’s daughter, stating “I scammed your father of GBP 165k” . A further aggravating feature was the role of two of his associates in the crimes, who pretended to be a male and a female police officer . Sentencing, Lord Arthurson said Mohammed had pursued “a despicable criminal project against some of the most vulnerable members of our society, taking a wrecking ball to their lives and those of their families, and indeed the wider community” — multiple violations of individual lives over a sustained period, involving much planning and committed while acting with others on each occasion, targeting a particular elderly cohort for his own financial gain without thought for the impact on his victims .

Public Reaction and Consequences

The sentencing remarks set the case against Mohammed’s “appalling record of directly relevant analogous offending”: despite being only 35, he had accrued convictions for fraud in 2013, in 2026 in Scotland, and the Manchester Crown Court conviction of October 2024 covering frauds against elderly victims worth £958,949. Senior counsel advanced mitigation on his personal and family circumstances, his acceptance of criminal responsibility, the utility of the pleas, his expressed remorse, the overlapping periods of the Scottish and Manchester offending under the totality principle, and the fact that some sums were reimbursed — albeit by financial institutions rather than by Mohammed himself . The judge’s published remarks quantified the harm precisely — “multiple very real victims and similarly real, exactly quantifiable loss” — including the deceased victim’s family, left £45,900 out of pocket .

Current Status

Mohammed was sentenced to an in cumulo sentence of ten years’ imprisonment on the eight charges, completing a sentencing exercise the judge conducted in full knowledge of his outstanding English disposal: the court had been told his theoretical earliest date of liberation on the Manchester sentences was 9 November 2027, a date that already took account of both the October 2024 Manchester conviction and a 2026 sheriff court conviction and sentence . No appeal was reported in the published remarks .

Impact on Their Career/Life

At 35, Mohammed now carries three separate fraud convictions spanning two jurisdictions, custodial sentences at sheriff-and-jury level in Scotland and a near-decade English sentence for £958,949 of thefts from elderly people, and the new ten-year term for the £1,163,269 Glasgow campaign. The court’s framing of him as a “professional scammer” who deliberately targeted the elderly, and the record of messages gloating to a victim’s daughter that he had scammed her father of £165,000, attach to him a documented pattern of predatory offending against older people rather than a single lapse . With a theoretical earliest liberation date of 9 November 2027 already fixed on his English sentences before the Scottish term was imposed, the ten-year Glasgow sentence sits alongside a custody record that keeps him incarcerated well beyond that date .

Sources

• “HMA v Azeem Mohammed, remarks of Lord Arthurson” — Judiciary of Scotland, 16 October 2026: source