Three conmen have been brought to justice by the Manchester Evening News.

A reporter went undercover as a telesales rep to expose their conning of hundreds of thousands of pounds out of people by pretending to run a crime prevention unit to help children.

At Manchester Crown Court they admitted charges of conspiracy to defraud by selling adverts in an anti-drugs booklet aimed at youngsters.

Customers were misled into believing the publication – never distributed to schools – was backed by police.

The men raked in £750,000 in the year the scam operated.

The MEN was alerted to the scam after being contacted by one of the firm’s former workers, and after speaking to several ex-staff reporter Sarah Lester went undercover as a telesales rep to gather information on the firm.

During her training she was given a script designed to convince firms to buy an advert – costing between £99 and £899 – in an anti-drugs booklet which she was told would go out to 300,000 schools across the country.

Sarah said: “The script strongly suggested an association with the police and never acknowledged that the call came from a profit-making company.

“I was told to concentrate on the crime prevention line and manipulate people into believing that if they bought an ad, they would be helping their community.

“I asked what we should do if asked whether the company was related to the police and was told to say the police knew about the company and knew what was being done. I later found out this was completely untrue.”

Sarah’s findings were passed on to police, who swooped on the companies’ premises and arrested the men.

The MEN’s investigation has been praised by police and trading standards.

Det Insp Graeme Wallis from the commercial fraud unit said: “We have to thank the Manchester Evening News for providing us with invaluable evidence.”

The three men originally refused to admit their crime and a trial was scheduled to last two months, with 200 witnesses being called. But after two days of legal argument, they changed their pleas to guilty.

They were all bailed to reappear on November 8 for sentence and could face jail or heavy fines.

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