A former rugby star from Richmond has been jailed alongside men from Wimbledon and Wandsworth after carrying out a £2 million mobile phone fraud using the details of hundreds of UK students.

The second-in-command of a gang of fraudsters, Alexander Karonias, 32, of Palewell Park, East Sheen, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of money laundering and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and banned for ten years from being the director of any company.

The former professional rugby player for London Scottish was convicted along with six other fraudsters, one who was from Wandsworth and another from Wimbledon.

Detectives from the Met's National Mobile Phone Crime Unit began an investigation in March 2014 after two students at the University of Sheffield contacted police to report their bank accounts were being used fraudulently.

The investigation uncovered a “long-running and sophisticated fraud” carried out against the companies who supply mobile phone services, including EE, Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile, Three and Virgin.

The gang of fraudsters approached students offering £50 to use their details to take out a phone contract in their name.

They told the students they were not doing anything dishonest, but needed peoples’ names and details to get legitimate unclaimed upgrades, or take advantage of legal loopholes.

The contracts were set up on an individual subscriber basis, but also via companies set up in the students’ names, as this would allow more handsets to be obtained on a single contract.

Once the mobile phone handsets had been sent out to the students’ address, they were asked to post them on to a rented office in Fulham.

The fraudsters then used two methods of making money from the new handsets, which were mainly iPhone5s, and associated SIM cards.

In the majority of cases, the contract would be cancelled and they would send back cheap, counterfeit handsets and disguise the fraud by manipulating the weight entry on the proof of postage receipt.

The original handsets would then be unlocked and sold abroad where they could be used with a foreign SIM card.

The gang would also make money by selling the SIM card to a text marketing company.

The person identified as the manager of the fraud, which was run via three companies JBi Systems Ltd, JBi Capital Ltd and Netlink Services UK Ltd, was Jonathan Boorman.

He was described as “Big Boss” in a directory spreadsheet seized by Met detectives and his second in command was Alex Karonias.

The fraud was carried out for one year from August 2013 to August 2014.

Many of the students were recruited via social networks attached to university groups, including the rugby teams at Leeds and Sheffield.

In many cases, the contracts were not cancelled, leaving the students left with large debts which subsequently affected their credit ratings.

The combined loss for the mobile phone networks has been totalled as £2,149,344.

The seven defendants were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Friday, October 27.

Jonathan Boorman, 32, of Devonshire Buildings, Bath, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of money laundering, was sentenced to six years and four months' imprisonment and banned for ten years from being the director of any company.

Laura Kane, 28, of Elm Road, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, who was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of money laundering, was sentenced to five years and six months' imprisonment and banned for ten years from being the director of any company.

Charlie Shelton, 31, of The Ridgway, Wimbledon, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud was sentenced to three years and three months' imprisonment and banned for six years from being the director of any company.

Robert Morrison, 31, of Hardwicks Square, Wandsworth, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud was sentenced to two years and three months’ imprisonment and banned for five years from being the director of any company.

Thomas Maynard, 26, of Pagoda Gardens, who pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, and must complete 160 hours unpaid work.

He has been banned for six years from being the director of any company.

Reiss Rawson, 31, of Ranelagh Mansions, New Kings Road, who was found guilty at trial of one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of money laundering, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, and must complete 160 hours unpaid work.

Detective Inspector Louise Shea, of the Met's Cyber Crime Unit, said: “This was a meticulously planned fraud that was carried out on an industrial scale.

“The defendants used the personal details of students from across the country to obtain mobile phone contracts which they used to make a profit.

“The motive for this crime was pure greed and the fraudsters showed a complete disregard for the trust placed in them by the students who handed over their details, many of who have been left with large debts.

“In some cases, the students gave their parents’ home address and this has subsequently affected their ability to apply for credit.

“This case should act as a warning for any student who is offered a cash incentive to hand over their personal details.

“It may be tempting to earn some short-term cash in this way, but in the long-term you could be left with a large debt and a poor credit rating, which will affect your ability to get a mortgage or bank loan in the future.”