AHMED: FRAUDSTER TOOK BANK’S CASH USING CHIP AND PIN READER

A fraudster who used a series of bogus identities to con Barclays Bank out of £60,000 was jailed for three years today (THURS).

Shabbir Ahmed, 31, issued hundreds of refunds to non-existent customers using a handheld business credit card reader.

Following his arrest detectives discovered more than a dozen forged passports, two fake passport stamps and a stash of banking and other documents.

Six of the passports used Ahmed’s photo but were in other names.

The Old Bailey heard Ahmed came to the UK from Pakistan last year on a tourist visa but is now an illegal overstayer and faces deportation.

He set up four companies in October 2010 which were registered as traders with Barclaycard to get a ‘Chip and Pin’ reader.

Refunds were then issued when the customer was not present, totalling £59,372.57.

Prosecutor Kathryn Hirst said: ‘There had never been a transaction, they were simply billed as refunds.

‘As a result of linking these entities to him his address in Croydon was searched.’

Detectives found two passports including one that used his photograph in the name of Mohammed Afsal.

Banking correspondence in his VW Golf led to another address in Wingford Road, Brixton, southeast London.

There detectives found a box containing 16 passports in different names, including two UK passports that had been stolen in 2009.

Miss Hirst said: ‘On any view he was active in terms of setting up fraudulent identities.’

Judge Giles Forrester told him: ‘It seems to me the appropriate sentence is one of three years custody.

‘It seems entirely appropriate that you leave this country as soon as may be, which I’m told you wish to do.’

Ahmed, of [Flat 4, 250] Whitehorse Road, Croydon, pleaded guilty to 14 counts of possession of false identity documents with intent, two counts of possession of false identity documents, two counts of possession of apparatus for making false identity documents and six counts of fraud by false representation last month.

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