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 prevention consultant 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]
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.
Mel Spillman is an American probate clerk and fraudster who transferred properties of dead people to his own accounts.
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.
Internet fraud prevention is the act of stopping various types of internet fraud. Due to the many different ways of committing fraud over the Internet, such as stolen credit cards, identity theft, phishing, and chargebacks, users of the Internet, including online merchants, financial institutions and consumers who make online purchases, must make sure to avoid or minimize the risk of falling prey to such scams.
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.
Neil Forsyth is a Scottish author, television writer and journalist. He has written and created a number of British television shows including The Gold, Guilt, and Bob Servant Independent, and has won numerous television awards.
A card-not-present transaction is a payment card transaction made where the cardholder does not or cannot physically present the card for a merchant's visual examination at the time that an order is given and payment effected. It is most commonly used for payments made over the Internet, but can also be used with mail-order transactions by mail or fax, or over the telephone.
Fortune telling fraud, also called the bujo or egg curse scam, is a type of confidence trick, based on a claim of secret or occult information. The basic feature of the scam involves diagnosing the victim with some sort of secret problem that only the grifter can detect or diagnose, and then charging the mark for ineffectual treatments. The archetypical grifter working the scam is a fortune teller who announces that the mark is suffering from a curse that their magic can relieve, while threatening dire consequences if the curse is not lifted.
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.
Bob Nygaard is an American private investigator (PI) specializing in the investigation of confidence crimes, most notably psychic fraud. He has been instrumental in the arrest and conviction of numerous psychics, helping their victims obtain justice including financial restitution amounting to millions of dollars. He has consulted for ABC News and 20/20 as a specialist in psychic fraud. Nygaard previously was a member of the New York City Transit Police and Nassau County Police Department, retiring from service in 2008.
Con Man is a 2018 American crime drama film directed by Bruce Caulk and starring James Caan, Ving Rhames, Justin Baldoni, Elisabeth Röhm, Mark Hamill, Talia Shire and Armand Assante. It is based on the real-life story of Barry Minkow, who also appears in the film.
David Peter Bloom is a twice convicted American fraudster who defrauded investors of almost $15 million in the 1980s.