Landlord jailed over 'sophisticated' Gumtree lettings scam She looked around the property and put down a deposit. They met again, and she paid a months rent in advance and was provided with a tenancy agreement and a set of keys. She moved into the property, only to have the actual estate agent come round the following day and tell her she shouldn't be there, because the property had in fact been sold. In total she paid over £2,880. Gajraj used the same scam on another victim at the same property in Enfield, north London, persuading learning support worker Ruth Njenda to pay £1,000 in two installments. Students Valentin Carrillo and Qandeel Zafar then handed over a combined £2,325 for two one-bed flats in luxury flats in Phoenix Heights, Mastmaker Road, Canary Wharf. They were shown around the property by different people, and even taken to rented office spaces to be given tenancy agreements, in what the judge, Recorder Mark Turner branded a 'highly sophisticated scam'. "They attempted to move in only to find the keys didn't work, and were forced to spend the night sleeping in the hallway," Ms Whelan-Johnson continued. The following day they went to the offices, where the concierge tells them they ought to be suspicious because there seems to be a scam going on using his building. The police were contacted and when Mr Gajraj arrived to sort out the problem, he was arrested. He was linked to the first two scams through fingerprints on the tenancy documents and identification by the victims. Sentencing him to two years in prison, Recorder Turner said: "You have pleaded guilty to offences which on any analysis were a highly sophisticated operation to con prospective tenants out of substantial amounts of money. The sophistication was such that non-vulnerable victims were persuaded to part with their money. There is no doubt in my mind that only an immediate custodial sentence should suffice. He rejected an argument by Gajraj's lawyer Brent Martin that he was simply "the fall guy" for a large gang of fraudsters, saying he was "fully aware" of what he was doing. Gajraj of Sutton, Surrey, pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud.