"Adhiya's role was to visit the lockers and retrieve the laptops"
Two cousins have been sentenced after they carried out a scam in which nearly £20,000 worth of Apple laptops were stolen.
Ravi Chandrana was a customer services employee at DHL. He diverted deliveries which were collected by his cousin.
He had logged into the system using an innocent colleague’s details to avoid being caught.
Deep Adhiya collected seven of the re-routed laptops from anonymous parcel collection lockers all over the UK.
Samuel Skinner, prosecuting, said the offences were committed between November 2016 and July 2017.
He said: “During this period, people in the UK who purchased Apple laptops online had them delivered by the DHL courier firm.
“As a customer services agent at DHL, Chandrana had trusted access to the company’s database as part of his work.
“It allowed him to find out details about customers who had ordered Apple laptops.
“He obtained inside information about purchasers of the laptops and this information was used to contact customer services to re-route the laptops from their intended destinations.
“They were instead delivered to various anonymous public parcel lockers based outside petrol stations, supermarkets and convenience stores.
“Adhiya’s role was to visit the lockers and retrieve the laptops – and did so at least seven times.
“Not every laptop identified by Chandrana was successfully diverted.
“He was caught because DHL investigated patterns of work and the files he had opened, although suspicion was initially cast onto a co-worker whose login details Chandrana used on occasions.
“Adhiya was caught by police investigation of his mobile phone, CCTV footage and automatic number plate recognition evidence.”
Mr Skinner told Leicester Crown Court: “Chandrana had unexplained cash deposits in his bank account and made transfers totalling £3,709 to Adhiya’s account.”
The court heard that in 2015, Adhiya theft by employee offence, when he took boxes containing Apple iPhones from a pallet while working as a delivery driver. He had received a 12-month community order.
Chandrana had no previous convictions.
Chandrana, aged 28, of Derby, admitted theft of laptops worth £19,501 and attempting to obtain even more, valued at £15,175.
Adhiya, aged 26, of Leicester, admitted handling seven stolen laptops, worth £10,410.
Judge Ebraham Mooncey said that none of the missing laptops have been recovered.
He said: “We’ve not been told the full story about whose idea it was, how it started and what you did with the money.
“Mr Chandrana, you were prepared to let someone else get into trouble for it, but fortunately that other person wasn’t under investigation for long.
“You’re both intelligent, but both were dishonest and greedy.”
The judge added: “I have to bear in mind these are old offences and it’s taken so long to come to court that a lot of water has passed under the bridge and neither has re-offended.”
He said he took into account their current duties as carers for one or more of their ailing parents.
Grahame James, mitigating for Adhiya said: “He accepts what he did from the beginning was dishonest.
“He lives with his family and is a full-time carer for his parents, particularly his mother.”
Tanveer Qureshi, for Chandrana, said his client had financial and other difficulties at the time which he had since addressed.
He said: “He takes responsibility for his actions.
“Both his parents have medical conditions and he has taken on additional responsibilities to care for his mother, who recently had an accident.”
Leicester Mercury reported that Chandrana received an 18-month sentence, suspended for two years, with 100 hours of unpaid work.
Adhiya received a 13-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, with 80 hours of unpaid work.
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