A former footballer who enjoyed a champagne lifestyle masquerading as a Premier League player has been jailed for four years.
However, he continued to
enjoy the high life by pretending to be Chelsea midfielder Gael Kakuta, staying
in top London hotels, running up bar tabs of thousands of pounds and being
chauffeur-driven in a Bentley, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Abalimba played
professionally for Derby, Oldham Athletic, Southend United, Fulham and Crystal
Palace and was once sold for a £1m fee.
He admitted 12 offences of
fraud and dishonesty in London, West Yorkshire, Manchester and Derby worth a
total of £163,000.
Judge Robert Atherton said:
"There is here a catalogue of offences of sophisticated dishonesty,
fraudulently representing that you were a person who you were not."
Abalimba was pretending to
be Chelsea's Gael Kakuta
The court heard that
Abalimba gained access to a gym in Camden, north London, where he obtained a
key to the lockers and would take photos of American Express card numbers to
use on his spending sprees.
Among the hotels he
targeted was the Madarin Oriental Hotel, the Corinthia Hotel, the Millennium
Knightsbridge Hotel and the Bulgari Hotel.
He also defrauded the Club
Live nightclub in Manchester, Selfridges in Manchester's Trafford Centre and
rented an £800 a night mansion in Ascot, Berkshire, where he was tracked down
by officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and arrested on August 10.
Vic Wozny, defending
Abalimba, said he had come to the UK from the Congo at the age of five and had
a "rough upbringing" in London where he "ran with the wrong crowd".
He said: "When he
started to slide and the money dried up, my client could not accept that he did
not continue to live the high life.
"The offences started
to happen. Thereafter my client's difficulties snowballed."
Bobo knows how to enjoy life sha
ReplyDeleteI am sure, he from Nigeria
ReplyDelete