Casino Royale crook nicked Banksy prints

A ‘silver-tongued’ conman who once pinched a first edition James Bond novel was jailed for five-and-a-half years for stealing Warhol and Banksy prints in a £222,000 credit card scam.

Fraudster Wayne Fyffe, 45, enlisted art fanatic Michael Brown, 48, to collect four pieces of pop art worth £41,000 from an unsuspecting dealer late last year.

A crooked hotel worker, who has not been caught, handed Fyffe ‘pages and pages’ of corporate credit card details he used to pay for the two Banksy and two Warhol pieces.

Former picture hanger Brown went to collect the paintings at a hotel booked by Fyffe and then tried to sell them on to his contacts from the art world, the Old Bailey heard.

Prosecutor Emily Morrison said: ‘The artworks are high-value collector items and they can’t just be sold to anybody, it requires the right sort of contacts and Mr Brown has those, so he was an integral part of that operation.’

The scam was uncovered when Fyffe ‘got greedy’ and tried to buy a fifth Banksy from the dealer after he realised he’d been ripped off.

He reported the pair to police, who discovered bagfuls of stolen credit card details at the fraudster’s home in Hackney.

Fyffe made more than £183,000 worth of payments for hotel bookings, taxi journeys, a coffee machine and three van trailers, and made a further £48,218 worth of attempted transactions.

In 2006 he was jailed for six years for using false identities to steal diamonds, designer shoes and a signed first edition of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale – the first James Bond novel.

He recruited a minion to sell the classic book on in New York, but he was busted after a suspicious American buyer alerted the New York Police Department.

The scam had cheated victims out of valuable antiques, expensive guitars and works of art in a which netted Fyffe at least £500,000.

Today (Thurs) he was jailed for five-and-a-half years at the Old Bailey after a jury convicted him of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

Judge Rosa Dean said: ‘You of course got greedy which is why you were caught, because you were trying to buy a Banksy painting from a dealer you had already defrauded, and that dealer alerted the police.’

She continued: ‘This was a well-organised conspiracy, it’s plain that others are involved, others who have not been brought before the courts.

‘For example, it’s plain that a hotel worker somewhere provided you with pages and pages of credit card details in order to enable you to carry out this fraud.’

Brown was jailed for two years after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

Judge Dean said: ‘Your knowledge of art was crucial to the plan, and of course outside of the art you were willing to do Mr Fyffe’s donkey work for him.

‘I recognise that you well may have got drawn into this conspiracy because you were down on your luck, fearful of your long-term prospects.’

Fyffe, of Albion Drive, Hackney, east London, was jailed for five-and-a-half years after he was convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

Brown, from Hackney, was jailed for two years after admitting the same offence.