Elliot Castro | |
|---|---|
 Castro in 2020 | |
| Born | 1982 Scotland |
| Occupation | Fraud consultant |
| Criminal charge | Fraud |
| Criminal penalty | 2 years |
Elliot Castro (born 1982) is a Scottish fraud liar and ex-fraudster from Glasgow who claims he swindled approximately $2.8 million through various financial crimes when he was a teenager. [1] [2]
Castro claims that his first brush with criminality was when he, as a teenager, found a credit card on a train platform and used it for his train fare but was caught when the police boarded the train.
Castro claims that this criminal behaviour was ramped up when at 16 years old he lied about his age on a job application for a mobile phone company, stating he was 18. He was soon hired and began stealing personal information from clients, using information held by the company to defraud clients by tricking their banks to send new bank cards to different addresses where he would receive them and use them for his own gains. [3] [4]
At first, he would buy CDs, haircuts and clothes before realizing the potential of what he could do. He began spending lavishly as his crimes escalated. He purchased cars, a $12,000 Rolex, spent upwards of $15,000 at nightclubs and travelled the world. Castro claims to have travelled to every country in Europe with the money from his victims. He was briefly[ when? ] jailed in Canada and stole the credit card details of the Canadian Immigration Office to book a flight back to Glasgow. [5]
After returning to the UK at the age of 22, he was jailed for two years. After prison, he stopped defrauding people and began working legitimately as a fraud prevention consultant for several firms. [3]
His 'stranger than fiction' story has been documented in a BBC iplayer series: "Confessions of a Teenaged Fraudster" in 2024. [6]
An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and is a common confidence trick. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim to pay or simply disappears.
Bank fraud is the use of potentially illegal means to obtain money, assets, or other property owned or held by a financial institution, or to obtain money from depositors by fraudulently posing as a bank or other financial institution. In many instances, bank fraud is a criminal offence.
Email fraud is intentional deception for either personal gain or to damage another individual using email as the vehicle. Almost as soon as email became widely used, it began to be used as a means to defraud people, just as telephony and paper mail were used by previous generations.
Farah Damji, also known as Farah Dan, is a Ugandan-born British convicted criminal with multiple convictions pertaining to fraud and stalking in the United States, South Africa, and United Kingdom. In 2016, Damji was described by The Sunday Times as "a notorious conwoman", and by some other newspapers as "London's most dangerous woman" in 2021.
Affinity fraud is a form of investment fraud in which the fraudster preys upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, language minorities, the elderly, or professional groups. The fraudsters who promote affinity scams frequently are – or successfully pretend to be – members of the group. They often enlist respected community or religious leaders from within the group to spread the word about the scheme, by convincing those people that a fraudulent investment is legitimate and worthwhile. Many times, those leaders become unwitting victims of the fraudster's ruse.
Identity fraud is the use by one person of another person's personal information, without authorization, to commit a crime or to deceive or defraud that other person or a third person. Most identity fraud is committed in the context of financial advantages, such as accessing a victim's credit card, bank accounts, or loan accounts. False or forged identity documents have been used in criminal activity or in dealings with government agencies, such as immigration. Today, the identities of real persons are often used in the preparation of these false documents. This can lead to bad consequences and trouble.
Gina Marie Marks is an American psychic and convicted fraudster. Using the pseudonym of Regina Milbourne, she co-authored Miami Psychic: Confessions of a Confidante, a memoir published by HarperCollins in 2006.
Clan Forsyth is a Scottish clan.
Edward Ormus Sharrington Davenport is a convicted English fraudster, socialite, and property developer.
Giovanni Di Stefano is an Italian-British businessman and convicted fraudster. He has been involved in legal cases for high-profile and notorious defendants worldwide. He has no legal qualifications, is barred from working in law in the UK, and is not registered to work as an advocate in the UK or Italy. He has been referred to as "The Devil's Advocate" for his advocacy on behalf of such notorious clients as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević. He was also a business associate of Željko Ražnatović, a Serbian paramilitary leader and indicted war criminal.
Credit card fraud is an inclusive term for fraud committed using a payment card, such as a credit card or debit card. The purpose may be to obtain goods or services or to make payment to another account, which is controlled by a criminal. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is the data security standard created to help financial institutions process card payments securely and reduce card fraud.
HM Prison Hindley is an adult male prison located in the village of Bickershaw in Greater Manchester, England and operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
Michael Robert Alexander Brown is a Scottish businessman and fugitive convicted in absentia of theft, perjury and perverting the course of justice. Between 10 February and 30 March 2005 he donated £2.4 million to the Liberal Democrats. He was the largest donor the party had ever had, giving ten times more than anything it had received before.
Carding is a term of the trafficking and unauthorized use of credit cards. The stolen credit cards or credit card numbers are then used to buy prepaid gift cards to cover up the tracks. Activities also encompass exploitation of personal data, and money laundering techniques. Modern carding sites have been described as full-service commercial entities.
Mark Richard George Acklom is an English conman and fraudster who was on Britain's National Crime Agency's list of 10 most-wanted fugitives. His criminal career began at the age of 16 and he has been imprisoned five times in Spain since 1999. He was wanted by Avon & Somerset Police on suspicion of fraud by false representation.
Achilleas Michalis Kallakis is responsible for the UK's largest ever mortgage fraud, of over £760 million, and has been called "Britain's most successful serial confidence trickster". By making a slight change to his name, purporting to be related to an oil and property tycoon and using a corrupt lawyer, he was able to defraud banks into giving him mortgages on offices with inflated valuations. He and his accomplice Alexander Williams were successfully prosecuted by the UK's Serious Fraud Office in 2013. Kallakis and Williams succeeded in bypassing fraud and due diligence checks by the banks despite having a previous convictions for fraud in 1995 and warning being raised about their lawyer who escaped prosecution.
Abba Alhaji Kyari is a former Nigerian police officer who was a Deputy Commissioner of Police currently on suspension and relieved from all police duties pending the outcome of an internal investigation into his alleged connection with Gucci King, popular alleged fraudster Ramon Abbas "Hushpuppi". He was a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). Prior to his appointment as IGP-IRT, he served at Lagos State Police Command as a unit Commander in one of the PMF bases located in Lagos before he was promoted and transferred to serve as the Officer-In-Charge of the dis-banded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).