Conman who duped retired Gurkha soldiers ordered to pay back £6k or face further jail time

Sandeep Gurung, aged 34, of Lancaster Way, Farnborough, was sentenced earlier this year to 32 months in prison, after being found guilty of conning former Gurkha soldiers out of more than £38,000 while he lived in Northamptonshire.

He was sentenced at the time to 22 months for the fraud and a further 10 months for theft, to run consecutively.

At a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Northampton Crown Court, he has now been ordered to pay back some of the money, which will be returned to his victims, or face an additional four months on his current sentence if he fails to pay.

Gurung, himself a former Gurkha soldier, was arrested last year. The investigation revealed that he had befriended, and then duped retired and ex Gurkha soldiers, some of them from Northamptonshire out of money after offering to help them into non-existent jobs, obtain fictitious licenses or for fees to claim compensation.

He accrued in excess of £38,000, used some of the money to fund a gambling habit.

At his sentenceing hearing in March, the court heard Gurung had three different scams he used to steal money from the soldiers.

The first involved telling them he could get them a job as a security guard for the Sultan of Brunei or the Royal families of Saudi Arabia or Dubai and then informing his victims they needed to pay him money for a ‘CCTV licence’ before they could be employed.

Gurung also tricked some of his victims by telling them they were owed money from the British Government but needed to make a bank transfer to him first before receiving it.

Detective Sergeant Wayne Preece, from Wootton Hall’s financial investigation unit, said: “In cases where we can identify that criminals have money or assets from their illegal activities, it is always our priority to confiscate these and where possible return them to the victims.

“While the former Gurkha soldiers who fell victim to Gurung may never recover all the money they lost, this will go some way towards helping them.”