This man built FAKE government websites and made £2M off 120,000 people

In 2018, a 42 year old guy from Bristol named Thomas Gall noticed that when people needed to pay government fees online, they just Googled it and clicked the top result without checking the URL
So he built 40 websites that looked exactly like the real UK government sites, same logos, same fonts, same layout
Then he paid Google to list his fake sites at the top of the search results, right above the actual pages
When people searched for things like the Dartford Crossing toll, London's ULEZ charge, fishing licenses or car tax registration, his fake websites were the first thing that came up
A £2.50 toll became £7.50 on his site and he pocketed the £5 difference after forwarding the real payment
Sometimes he didn't even forward the payment at all, so weeks later the victim got a penalty notice in the mail for not paying the toll they thought they had already paid
He charged £20 to register a SORN with the DVLA, a service the government gives you for free
Google suspended his ad account and the National Trading Standards team sent him warnings, but he just kept going
Over two years, 120,000 people paid him for services they thought were going to the British government
He made over £2 million before getting jailed for 2 years and 3 months
Even Google made money selling his ads the entire time