The group, which included an X Factor star and a fraudster who convinced Jeremy Corbyn to argue for bail, had a 'catastrophic' impact on victims, which included Second World War veterans.
Some of the pensioners were in their nineties when they had their savings stolen, and the average age of those targeted was 83.
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| In the dock: Mohamed Dahir was part of a 'Bank of Terror' gang that defrauded pensioners out of £1million - and persuaded Jeremy Corbyn to ask a judge to allow him out of jail |
They posed as police officers to dupe elderly victims into handing over their money, which was then laundered and frittered away on foreign holidays and designer clothes.
Jeremy Corbyn wrote a letter on behalf of Mohamed Dahir, asking for him to be granted bail when he was first charged - Dahir tried to use it so he could get home for Christmas.
X Factor reject Nathan Fagan-Gayle, 29 laundered £20,000 in a scam so he could record a new album and buy some new outfits.
Gang members phoned their victims pretending to be investigating a fraud at their bank and told them they needed to transfer their money for 'safekeeping'.
They persuaded one elderly victim who had cancer to miss a doctor's appointment to withdraw cash for them.
The men, described by police as 'cruel, callous and calculating' committed fraud on an 'industrial' level, the Old Bailey heard.
Describing the impact on the victims, Judge Anujar Dhir told the court: 'Some were in their 90s and some passed away before the trial took place.'
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| X Factor reject Nathan Fagan-Gayle, 29 (pictured left outside court and right on the show) laundered £20,000 in a scam so he could record a new album and buy designer clothes |
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| Haul: A photo of cash found on the mobile phone of another member of the gang. The money was never recovered |
But he said it is believed there are many other unidentified victims who were conned out of a further £328,000 at least.
He told the court: 'It is clear from those figures that this was a large-scale, sophisticated conspiracy that operated on victims in a nationwide scale.
'There was a method of operating, of conning the invariably elderly and vulnerable victims who were telephoned to their home addresses.
'The callers, who were part of the fraud, would pretend to be either from banks or to be law enforcement officers - police officers.'
He said the con artists would claim there had been suspicious activity on the victims' bank accounts and trick them into transferring money into other accounts.
The method then changed and from December 2014 victims were conned into taking out 'large sums of money' from their banks accounts and handing the cash over to the gang.
He said: 'Those sums of cash would be brought back to their home addresses and couriers who were part of the conspiracy would travel down to parts of the country to collect the cash from the victims.'
The victims, some of whom have since died, were conned into making multiple trips to banks to hand over up to £130,000 in cash and cheques.
Believing they were helping the police, victims were persuaded to lie to those around them about the money, the Old Bailey heard.
Mr Dent said: 'The victims had to deceive their own banks and to deceive their own families about what happened.'
He added: 'We say this was a fraud that directly targets the elderly and vulnerable and plays on their insecurities, sometimes their isolation, their sense of decency.
'And that, probably in no small measure, because of their age and vulnerability, the fraudsters had control of the victims and were adept at keeping control of the victims - keeping them isolated, making sure that their own partners, husbands and wives, were not informed about what was going on, their children were not informed about what was going on.'
The victims, the oldest of whom was 94, were from Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Bedfordshire, London and Kent.
Some died without ever seeing justice, the court heard.
One elderly man lost £113,000, while a woman was tricked out of £130,000, the court heard.
Former X Factor contestant Nathan Fagan-Gayle, 29, was convicted of laundering £20,000 from 73-year-old Elizabeth Curtis, who was duped into handing it over by a fake police officer in May 2014.
Breaking down in tears during a taped interview, Miss Curtis said: 'I was absolutely stunned and shocked and could not believe I had been so stupid and naive as to be taken in.'
In all, Miss Curtis was persuaded to transfer around £130,000 to different accounts.
The court heard that singer-songwriter Fagan-Gayle, from Tower Hamlets, east London, went on a shopping spree and used some of the cash to hire a car in the United States.
In a separate trial last year, Mohamed Dahir, 23, Shakaria Aden, 22, and Yasser Abukar, 24, all from north London, were found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud between May 2014 and May 2015.
Following the convictions, it emerged that Jeremy Corbyn, in his role as Islington North MP, had sent a letter in support of Dahir's original successful bail application last May.
Other defendants pleaded guilty to their part in the fraud - either as conspirators or money launderers.
They are: Fahim Islam, 21, of east London; Ahmed Ahmed, 23, of north London; Makhzhumi Abukar, 23, from north London; Anrul Islam, 24, from Dagenham; and Warsame Sheik, 30, from Harrow.
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| Scam: Yasser Abukar in a group posing as police officers to persuade victims to transfer cash into accounts controlled by their associates |
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| Criminal enterprise: Fahim Islam, right, were part of a nie-strong gang of fraudsters |
The juries were not told that the con was uncovered by the Met's Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) after a separate terror probe found suspicious payments into a bank account of someone who is now in Syria.
Speaking after the earlier convictions in December last year, Commander Richard Walton, head of SO15, said: 'This was a scam on a huge national scale detected by specialist financial investigators who have stopped the targeting of even more victims.
'We uncovered this fraud after a separate terrorist investigation found suspicious payments into a bank account of an individual who is now believed to have travelled to Syria.'
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