Credulity

A reader has pointed me to a UK item regarding an identity scam.

The Daily Mail reports that

To his victims he was an Italian aristocrat, a tragic cancer sufferer, an IT executive, even a songwriter for a famous rock band.

In reality, Scott Travis was nothing more than a jobless conman living on benefits in a shabby council flat in Rochdale.

The smooth-talking chancer constructed a web of lies and fake identities – including Viscount Franco Dibella III – to swindle his girlfriend and a pensioner out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Fraudster: Scott Travis posed as an Italian millionaire to con his elderly victim, as well as his own girlfriend Gail Heyworth.

His charades allowed him to buy a £50,000 Lexus car, have cosmetic surgery and stay for six weeks in a £200-a-night hotel alongside showbusiness stars.

He enjoyed weekends in Monte Carlo, employed a chauffeur, drank £80 bottles of Bollinger champagne and wore suits from designer boutiques.

Among his lies, the 44-year-old even claimed to be awaiting a fortune in royalties after writing songs for the British rock band Whitesnake.

Last night, however, Travis was facing up to life behind bars after a jury took just ten minutes to convict him of stealing the £100,000 life savings of an elderly man he conned by pretending to have cancer.

Oh dear. Travis' claims were repellent and almost as colourful as that of the faux Mgqumeni Khumalo, who supposedly resurrected after being kept in a cave by South African zombies for the past two years. The imposter has been charged with fraud.

Thousands of fans flocked to his home and police used water cannon to control the crowd which gathered outside the singer's remote rural home when news of his 'resurrection' spread.

They were there to catch a glimpse of Khulekani 'Mgqumeni' Khumalo - an award-winning Zulu folk musician who died in 2009.

The imposter mounted a police truck to explain to the crowd that he had been kidnapped by zombies who had kept him trapped in remote cave.

He said: 'I have been suffering a lot at the place where I was kept with zombies.

'It was hell there and I am so grateful that I was able to free myself and return to my family and you, my supporters.

'I promise to continue singing once I gather enough strength.'

'I am Mgqumeni. I know that some of you might not believe, but yes, it's true. It's me.'

The man went on: 'I know there are some people who doubt that I am Mgqumeni. You must know that none can pretend to be someone he is not.'

In classic style the imposter's claims were backed up by the dead singer's grandfather, Hlalalimanzi Khumalo, reported as saying "At first I doubted it was he, but, as the time went on, I could see that indeed it was he and as a family we are excited." You would be excited, wouldn't you, if your dead grandson both resurrected (a feat that isn't common) and managed to fend off a cave-full of the flesh-eating undead. We certainly don't see that every day at the University of Canberra, although I do harbour suspicions about whether some colleagues are truly alive or indeed human.

The S African police are reported as becoming involved when Mgqumeni

was unable to answer simple questions about Khumalo's music career - such as when he won one of the country's top music awards.

Doubts were also raised about the fact that the 'resurrected' singer no longer had his distinctive gold tooth and that the deep scars on his face appeared to have healed.

Perhaps the zombies offered him a spot of Botox and cosmetic dentistry as part of the package.

The UK scammer is reported as having -

sowed the seeds for his latest fraud in 2003 when he befriended his elderly victim after reading a newspaper advert the pensioner had placed seeking companionship.

Posing as ‘Franco’, the orphan son of an Italian aristocrat who was set to inherit millions, Travis begged the man for £20,000 for cancer treatment, plus another £9,000 to pay off a gangster.

The pensioner initially went to police, who warned him he might be the victim of a conman, but he decided not to press charges.

Later, Travis returned and claimed he needed a further £35,000 to release cash from the will of his mother, whom he said had died in a car crash in Naples.

He even paid a friend £500 to pose as a gangster who went to the pensioner’s home saying he was going to hurt ‘Franco’ unless the victim paid £30,000.

The pensioner later told police: ‘He was very angry. He said: “If you don’t get my money I’ll shoot you and him.” I was scared to death.’

The court also heard from a taxi driver paid to act as chauffeur for Travis only to be left with an unpaid bill of £1,265. ‘I fell hook, line and sinker for the lies told by him,’ he said. ‘His stories were so good, anybody would have believed them. I felt used, abused and foolish.’

Travis, who was convicted of four offences of obtaining money orders by deception, one of fraud and two offences of blackmail.

I'm reminded of other scammers, some of whom I've highlighted in papers on identity crime.

Christopher Rocancourt for example famously swindled the US rich and famous by variously pretending to be the son of Sophia Loren, a Rockefeller heir, a movie producer, a global financier or the nephew of Dino De Laurentis. The New York Times, with just a dash of hyperbole, claimed that "Women threw themselves at his feet; men threw cash". He had earlier posed as 'Prince Galitzine Christo' and dabbled in diamond smuggling, passport forgery and armed robbery.

Robert Hendy-Freegard reportedly posed as an MI5 officer, convincing people into spending years in hiding while stealing over £650,000 of their savings. It is alleged that he persuaded students and other victims that they were on an IRA hit list through their association with him, leading them to go undercover for years in 'safe houses' and travel on spy missions that featured waiting for hours at railway stations for non-existent people. In Hendy-Freegard v R [2007] EWCA Crim 1236 the Court noted that -

The facts of this case are, happily, extraordinary. The appellant is a confidence trickster who combines seductive charm with an astonishing capacity to deceive. At the heart of what the judge rightly described as a 'web of deceit and lies' was his pretence that he was an undercover agent working variously for MI5 or Scotland Yard. Once his victims were under his influence he took control of their lives, directing them what to do and where to live. His directions often exposed them to substantial hardship. He treated them with callous cruelty and fleeced them and their parents of sums of money totalling approximately £500,000.

Some aspects of the appellant's conduct laid the ground for the charges of dishonesty of which he was convicted. The Crown searched, however, for an offence that would encapsulate all aspects of the appellant's conduct and, in particular, the deprivation, as a result of his malign influence and deception, of his victims' freedom to pursue their own lives. The Crown decided that the offence of kidnapping would fit this bill. A single count of kidnapping was charged in relation to each of the four victims on the basis that it could be shown that each had been induced by deception to make a journey that he or she would not have made had he or she known the truth and that these facts constituted the ingredients of the offence of kidnapping, as identified by Lord Brandon in R v D [1984] 1 AC 778. The judge accepted the latter proposition and directed the jury accordingly. He subsequently treated the two counts of kidnapping in respect of which the jury returned guilty verdicts as enabling him to impose sentences that reflected the overall seriousness of the appellant's behaviour.

Sydney security guard Richard Kahotea was less creative, using forged documents in support of claims that he was a senior ASIO operative, thereby gaining closed court hearings on four occasions and privileges for an associate. Kahotea was convicted and sentenced to 300 hours of community service for making a false statement under oath and using fabricated evidence.

The SMH reported that -

In May 2004 Kahotea told his partner, Suzanne McElroy, that he had resigned from the ASIO because the government was trying to blame someone in the intelligence community for the Bali bombing. He also told her her phones were being tapped, police said.

Ms McElroy panicked and fled to a friend's house, where she drank several glasses of wine. On her way home, she was stopped by police and charged with drink driving.

She appeared at Waverley Local Court in relation to the drink driving charge in June 2004, and asked the magistrate to take into account that she had been anxious and concerned about Kahotea's situation and that her phone had been intercepted by ASIO, police said.

After asking for the court to be closed, Kahotea gave evidence in support of her story. According to the documents tendered to the Downing Centre court, he said he was involved in intelligence in Australia and New Zealand and was the subject of an ASIO investigation that had resulted in Ms McElroy's phone calls being intercepted.

Why stop there?

Two years later, in May 2006, Kahotea appeared twice before the Waverley Local Court for breaching the order. On both occasions he asked for the court to be closed.

He later appeared in the Balmain Local Court on the same charge, and again asked for the court to be closed. According to the police statement tendered to the Downing Centre court, he told the Balmain court he had been a New Zealand defence and intelligence official, and tendered two documents in proof. The court accepted they were genuine.

There was only one problem. The documents have since been identified by the New Zealand Defence Force and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service as forgeries, the Downing Centre court heard.

A document identical to that tendered to Waverley Local Court and a letter purporting to be Kahotea's resignation letter from ASIO was found on the hard drive of a laptop at his Glebe home, the court heard.

In a police interview Kahotea, who now works as a furniture removalist after his security licence was revoked, admitted to misleading the Waverley court by providing false evidence and to producing the ASIO resignation letter. However he denied forging the documents.

He received a sentence of 300 hours of community service for making a false statement under oath and using fabricated evidence. The SMH in 2008 stated that Kahotea said

his evidence in relation to Ms McElroy's drink driving charge had been "all bullshit" but that he really had been involved in "top secret" operations. He said people in the New Zealand Defence Force had made sure any inquiries about his history would be met with a brick wall.

Ironically the NZ Defence Force were experiencing problems two years later with the amazing Stephen Wilce.

Italian businessman Rosario Poidimani was arrested in 2007 over involvement in a scam centred on the claim that he was the king of Portugal (the last king having expired in 1932). Poidimani allegedly sold imaginary aristocratic titles and fraudulent diplomatic passports, underpinned by imaginary offshore bank accounts and an elaborate throne room. Poidimani has claimed to be innocent and as last month is apparently appealing a sentence of five years in prison for issuing false passports .