[ad_1]
A forklift driver who used a bank card belonging to Manchester City star Riyad Mahrez to spend £ 175,000 (€ 203,775) was jailed for fraud.
Sharif Mohamed, 32, admitted that he spent the footballer’s money on clothes for his children and drinks in high-end bars in Ibiza, but claimed that he was part of a larger group of people who accessed the card and had converted. in “the scapegoat.”
London’s Snaresbrook Crown Court also heard that the Barclays Bank card was used in a London casino, for hotel stays, in a nail salon, and for meals at Nando’s and Greggs.
After sentencing Mohamed to three years and eight months in prison, Judge Laurence West-Knights QC said “staggering sums” of money were stolen.
The court heard that the gang made “hundreds of transactions” of varying amounts in an “incredibly intense” spending period.
Mahrez only discovered that the large amounts had been depleted from his card in September 2017, after the scam had lasted for a month, and his bank was forced to refund him £ 175,830.
Mohamed from Forest Gate in East London previously claimed that another member of the group called the bank pretending to be the footballer and that he could only use the card under the supervision of others.
The court also heard that Mohamed had prior convictions for fraud, including a 22-month suspended sentence in 2016 and an 18-month suspended sentence for bank card fraud in June 2017, just two months before the offense committed against the footballer.
Judge West-Knights said: “Only two months later he was involved in committing these crimes with the same man, and possibly the same others, we don’t know.
“You knew very well that you had given the card to the rest of your group and they would go away and spend a great deal of money on it.
“The gist of this fraud was that it appears to have been perpetrated against a person with a large amount of money, someone who in fact would not realize that these huge sums disappear from the account, at least not immediately.
“For this to work, it is important that the card is milked immediately. I think it’s possible you gave the card and they went (on vacation with it). “
Mohamed admitted to a fraud charge at an earlier hearing in the same court in December.
He told the court two of the names of his alleged accomplices and said that despite going on vacation with them to Ibiza, he only knew the others as men with the nicknames Nanna and Chris.
The judge said he was satisfied that Mohamed knows more than the nicknames of the people who, according to him, were also part of the fraud.
He added that “there are many things in what you say that are completely unreliable.”
No news is bad news
Support the magazine
You contributions help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you
Support us now
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed that the victim of the scam was Mahrez, a winger who now plays for Manchester City.
In August 2017, when Mahrez was playing for Leicester City, an individual called his bank to request a replacement card, according to information provided by the CPS.
The card, from Barclays Bank, was not sent to the player’s address and Mr. Mahrez did not receive it.
Card transactions in August and September 2017 included meals at the Nando’s restaurant chain, as well as payments at hotels and at a nail salon.
It was used to make purchases on a Jet2 flight and the money was spent on the Spanish island of Ibiza, including at the Nikki Beach headquarters.
The use of the card was compared to CCTV at ATMs in a Stratford and Leicester Haymarket shopping center, which showed Mohamed withdrawing money about 10 times.
He admitted to using the card in Leicester and at Aspers Casino in the Westfield shopping center in Stratford, East London, having given it away to others, as well as on a flight to Ibiza.
Mahrez went to Manchester City for £ 60 million in the summer of 2018, two years after winning the Premier League title with Leicester City.
[ad_2]