PPE Fraudsters Who Preyed on Pandemic Shortages Jailed After Multi-Million Pound Scam

A fraudster who helped swindle medical supply companies out of millions of pounds by posing as a major player in the personal protective equipment market during the Covid-19 pandemic has been jailed for three years and nine months.

Craig Morris, 43, was sentenced at Northampton Crown Court on Wednesday after being convicted of two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, along with concealing and transferring criminal property. His co-defendant, Jogesh Bhandari, 60, who prosecutors described as the architect of the scheme, failed to appear for sentencing and will learn his fate next month.

The pair orchestrated a sophisticated confidence trick under the banner of a company called Banton, presenting themselves as established suppliers capable of delivering millions of boxes of nitrile gloves to buyers in the United States and Germany. In reality, they had no such stock and no means of sourcing it, according to evidence presented during their trial at Leicester Crown Court in July.

Prosecutor Michael Bisgrove told the court that the offences were committed at a moment of national and international crisis, when healthcare systems across the world were scrambling for protective equipment and demand vastly outstripped supply. He said the defendants, and particularly Bhandari and Morris, recognised that desperation as an opportunity for personal enrichment.

"They pretended to be big players in the PPE market. They pretended to have PPE for sale and to be able to buy vast amounts of it," Bisgrove told the court. The fraudulent contracts were sent to Med18, a company based in the United States, and MedTech, a German firm. Neither received the equipment they had been promised.

Instead, the money paid by the victims was diverted into a lavish lifestyle. The court heard that Bhandari spent thousands of pounds on luxury cars, including a red Porsche, and that funds were used for holidays, property purchases and paying off family debts. Morris, of Forest Drive in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, bought a house with his share of the proceeds.

The financial scale of the offending was laid out during the hearing. Jogesh Bhandari was said to have obtained and retained approximately £1.75 million through the fraud, while his wife, Meenakashi Bhandari, 58, laundered money amounting to £960,000. Morris had been receiving regular payments of £5,000 from Bhandari before the two men fell out towards the end of 2021, a rift that ultimately helped expose the scheme.

Meenakashi Bhandari, a former pharmacist who lives with her husband on Mitchell Drive in Loughborough, Leicestershire, attended the sentencing hearing. She had been found guilty of concealing and transferring criminal property. Judge William Harbage KC handed her a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years, alongside 250 hours of unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activity.

Her husband was absent from court. Jogesh Bhandari told his counsel that he was taking a "very extreme painkiller" after having a pacemaker fitted the previous week and was unable to travel to Northampton. Judge Harbage said there was "no medical evidence" to properly explain the absence and issued a bench warrant. Bhandari is expected to be sentenced on 16 October.

The court also heard that Jogesh Bhandari worked with Frank Labruzzo, an attorney in the Louisiana Attorney General's Office, who provided a fraudulent escrow service — a bank account designed to hold funds until pre-arranged conditions are met. Both Labruzzo and another individual involved in the scheme have already been convicted and sentenced in the United States, according to the National Crime Agency.

Sentencing Morris and Meenakashi Bhandari, Judge Harbage reflected on the wider context of the pandemic. He said it was a period when "all of us had to make sacrifices and pull together for the good of society as a whole." He added: "There were a few people though who sought to exploit that to make money for themselves, motivated by greed. I'm satisfied Jogesh Bhandari and Craig Morris fall into that category."

The case is the latest in a series of prosecutions arising from fraud committed during the pandemic, when unprecedented government spending and urgent international procurement created fertile ground for criminal opportunism. The National Crime Agency has previously highlighted how the rush to secure PPE contracts opened the door to intermediaries and brokers with little or no genuine supply chain.

For the companies targeted, the losses went beyond the purely financial. Med18 and MedTech had been attempting to source equipment at a time when delays carried serious consequences for frontline medical staff and patients. The replacement of legitimate suppliers with fraudulent middlemen compounded an already strained global procurement effort.

Morris now begins a prison term of three years and nine months, while Meenakashi Bhandari will serve her sentence in the community under supervision. Jogesh Bhandari, described by prosecutors as the "driving force and the instigator" of the offending, remains at liberty until his sentencing hearing in October, when he is expected to face a substantial custodial term for his central role in the deception.