A master forger who hoarded piles of cash in the h

A master forger who hoarded piles of cash in the home he turned into a credit card factory was jailed for 30 months today.

(Fri)

Astonished police officers who raided Gary Shodipe’s Brixton flat at (57) Kingscroft found notes totalling pnds stlg 57,600.

Computers, colour photocopiers, hologram machines and embossing tools were also discovered at the house
together with fake credit cards and a series of genuine credit card numbers.

Nigerian Shodipe, 33, even had an ultra-violet light for testing the quality of holograms, Inner London Crown Court heard.

The tentacles of Shodipe’s crime world stretched
as far as New York, where he had stolen credit card numbers and used them for cash advances.

Prosecutor Sarah Clarke said the bulk of Shodipe’s cash pile was made up of 73,000 US dollars (worth pnd stlg 52,400).

‘An examination of handwritten credit card numbers in his possession has indicated that a remarkable number of accounts have been compromised,’ Miss Clarke said.

The cash could not have come from legitimate sources as Inland Revenue files show Shodipe has never paid a penny of tax.

Cards created by Shodipe had been used for crooked transactions worth pnd stlg 9,000.

The court heard he has a previous conviction for possession of a stolen credit card in 1999
when he was sentenced to community service.

Shodipe smirked as the judge Mr Recorder Ross Cranston, QC, him: ‘You had equipment to make false credit cards and indeed did so or had others to do so.

The judge added the community punishment in 1999 for possession of a stolen credit card had been of no deterrent to the forger.

Shodipe was convicted by a jury of seven charges of possession of a false instrument and one charge of possession of articles for making false instruments.

A confiscation hearing in November will attempt to recover much of Shodipe’s ill-gotten gains.

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