Leader of multi-million pound PPE scam bought watches and luxury cars jailed

The leader of a personal protective equipment (PPE) scam who bought Rolex watches and luxury cars after scamming companies out of millions of pounds during the Covid-19 pandemic has been jailed.

Jogesh Bhandari, 60, spent £126,000 on a Porsche and bought an Audi A5, a Land Rover Discovery and jewellery after pretending he could supply millions of boxes of nitrile gloves in the US and Germany between late 2020 and early 2022.

Jogesh and Craig Morris, who helped with the sham deals, were convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and concealing and transferring criminal property, at Leicester Crown Court in July.

On Friday, Jogesh was sentenced to eight years in prison.

At a previous hearing on 7 October, Morris, of Forest Drive in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.

Jogesh’s wife, former pharmacist Meenakashi Bhandari, 58, of Mitchell Drive, Loughborough, was found guilty of concealing and transferring criminal property.

On 7 October, she was given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, 250 hours of unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activity.

Sentencing Jogesh at Northampton Crown Court, Judge William Harbage KC said the defendant was the “driving force” of the offending as the “directing mind” of Banton – the company used by him and Morris to make fraudulent deals.

The judge said remorse expressed by Jogesh in a letter to the court was “difficult to accept given how vigorously you contested these charges”.

Jogesh defrauded US company Med18 and German firm MedTech by sending contracts for equipment he did not have, the court heard.

The fraud began in November 2020 when Jogesh agreed a deal to provide 12 million boxes of gloves, and a company paid into a fraudulent escrow account provided by Frank Labruzzo, an attorney in the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office.

Rather than money remaining in the account until the deal was complete, it was immediately paid to Labruzzo and Jogesh.