Two corrupt businessmen who ran a £100,000-a-year bogus burglar alarm racket across the Black Country were starting lengthy jail sentences today.

Harjit Kalian, aged 35, was given four and a half years behind bars while Ajay Chopra was jailed for two and a half years after offering to give evidence against his former partner.

The pair targeted the sick and elderly using scare tactics to con them into buying dud alarms at vastly inflated prices, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard yesterday.

Prosecutor Barry Berlin said the former double glazing salesmen launched Pentagon Security in May 2007 and within a month both were acting dishonestly.

The pair sold cheap alarms as top of the range units and ignored complaints when victims discovered they did not work properly. Meanwhile the two crooks pocketed over £100,000 in 12 months before the scam was uncovered and the company went bust.

Kalian took the lions share and sacked Chopra four months before the racket was smashed by a joint investigation involving police and Sandwell Trading Standards Department who had been alerted by victims horrified by their spiralling phone bills.

They discovered 37 mainly elderly people who were prepared to go to court after falling for the scam but investigators believe the real number of those affected was far higher.

Kalian from Mount Road, Rowley Regis pleaded guilty to 22 fraud offences involving people living in Rowley Regis, Smethwick, Solihull, Oldbury, West Bromwich, Bilston, Dudley, Wednesbury and throughout Birmingham. Chopra of Baldwins Lane, Hall Green admitted 10 specimen fraud charges