Leeds students jailed after claiming £140,000 on train refunds through delay ‘loophole’

Two Leeds students have been jailed after claiming £140,000 on train refunds through a travel delay “loophole”

Li Liu, 26, and Wanqinq Yu, 25, exploited the national Delay Repay scheme, where passengers can claim compensation on journeys if their train is late.

Whilst living together in their student flat in Leeds, the pair discovered that when you applied for a ticket refund, there were no secondary checks to verify whether a customer had already been reimbursed.

The students would claim refunds for journeys they said they no longer wanted to travel on, then apply for compensation on those same journeys if the trains were delayed, the Daily Mail reports.

Leeds Crown Court heard how, when British Transport Police arrested them, Liu was found to have fraudulently obtained £141,031. Yu had taken a further £15,712.

Wanqinq Yu (left) and Li Liu (right) via British Transport Police

The pair would research train services across the country to analyse which ones were usually late.

Liu and Yu were found to have created 16 fake identities to disguise their activities, and used a 20-SIM card adapter in one phone. This allowed them to carefully observe each fraudulent scheme, enabling the requests to look as though they came from separate phones and identities.

They admitted charges of conspiracy to defraud and possession of criminal property, and were both held on remand since their arrest.

CrossCountry Trains first noticed the activities, which also affected several other companies, though the scams had been operating since 2001.

Liu had no previous convictions, having started a one-year course at the University of Leeds in 2024.

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Before studying at Leeds, he had applied for an advanced computer science course at the University of Birmingham.

The court heard Yu, who also had no previous convictions, was on a one-year course teaching English.

Leeds Crown Court via Google Maps

Following their arrest, both students gave no-comment interviews.

Liu was jailed for 30 months, whilst Yu was handed down 17 weeks.

Mitigating, Justin McClintock said Liu would “carry the remorse and shame for his life”.

He added that there was a “much more positive side to his character than reflected by his offending”.

McClintock told the court how Liu desired to be reunited with his family, who live in China.

Yu’s sentence meant she would soon be released because of time already served on remand.

Judge Crowson told the pair: “You identified a weakness in the system, and between you, you abused that weakness.

“There was some sophistication, you created false identities and created a large number of bank accounts in order to conceal that you were behind the fraud.”

Featured image via British Transport Police