"Let’s clean up!! Milk it… fill ya boots." This was a text message sent by one of three British con artists found guilty of carrying out a PPE scam so they could buy luxury cars, watches and holidays. During Covid, Jogesh Bhandari, 59, Meenakshi Bhandari, 58, and Craig Morris, 43, worked together with a man in America, to sell medical gloves that were never delivered. Among 47,000 messages between the two men, Morris wrote: "All over the news is all about PPE shortage. Let’s clean up!! Milk it… fill ya boots." Bhandari replied with an image of a Rolls Royce and told Morris: 'But if I want one of these [Rolls Royce] then we need to keep going'. In November 2020 Bhandari, who’s from Loughborough, agreed to provide 12 million boxes of gloves through his UK-based company. A month later he received payments of $2.7million (around £2m ) - some of which he used to pay his and his wife Meenakshi Bhandari's debts. In early 2021, he received another $3.18m (around £2.35 million) from a US hospital for an order of gloves that were never delivered. In the final deal, Bhandari received $1.35m (around £1m) - £200,000 of that was sent to his co-defendant Craig Morris. Morris, from Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, had expected regular payments of £5,000 before the two men fell out at the end of 2021. Bhandari was working with Frank Labruzzo, a former US assistant attorney general, who was convicted on similar charges in the US two years ago. Buyers believed they were putting money into a secure holding account but it was actually going directly to Bhandari and Labruzzo. Paul Boniface, operations manager at the National Crime Agency, said: “Bhandari and his co-conspirators capitalised on these vulnerabilities by exploiting people and businesses for their own financial gain, paying for lavish lifestyles of luxury cars and significant home improvements. “Fraud like this diverts essential equipment away from genuine organisations and the effects are far-reaching, beyond immediate losses for the legitimate businesses involved.” Bhandari and his wife used the money to buy holidays, a kitchen refurbishment, Rolexes, jewellery, an Audi A5, a Land Rover Discovery, a VW Golf and a £126,000 Porsche. All three will be sentenced for money laundering and fraud by false representation on 21 August. #5News #covidー19 #PPE - @c5news