An identity fraudster who modelled himself on a conman pilot played by Leonardo DiCaprio has been locked up for three years.
Alexander Da Silva, 29, copied the plot of the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can by dressing up in a pilot’s uniform and boasting of working for an airline. He even posed under the name Romeo DiCaprio as one of his many aliases.
In reality Da Silva was a small-time conman who colluded with Jean Campos, his 28-year-old Brazilian boyfriend, to use fake identities and documents to swindle the owners of luxury apartments, banks and pawnbrokers in a £20,000 ‘campaign of fraud’.
By the time couple were arrested last October at their home in The Grand, in Aytoun Street, Manchester they were juggling 21 different bank accounts in various names which they used to pass bogus cheques.
Who else has been locked up in May? Sentences and photo gallery
It was also discovered they had used a computer program to produce false bank statements and utility bills for their scams.
Da Silva admitted possessing a false identity document with intent, possessing articles for use in frauds and 11 counts of fraud and was sentenced to three years and three months.
Campos admitted two counts possessing a false identity document with intent, possessing articles for use in frauds, and two counts of fraud, and was jailed for 10 months.
Prosecuting, Christopher Gutteridge said: “Prosecuting authorities considered whether Mr Da Silva had taken some inspiration from the film Catch Me If You Can, where the central character, played by Leonardo DiCaprio is a confidence trickster.”
Manchester Crown Court heard that Da Silva obtained passports in the names of Romeo DiCaprio and Alexander Olivier Adams after changing his name by deed poll and forging the signature of a referee.
In June 09, using the passport in the name DiCaprio, a forged reference from his other alter ego, Alexander Olivier Adams, a fake letter saying he had been offered a job as an immigration officer at Manchester Airport, and a doctored bank statement, Da Silva took out a tenancy in the Great Northern Tower.
The deposit he gave the landlord bounced and by the time he and his lover had been evicted last July they owed £2,500.
Da Silva and Campos then took out another tenancy at The Grand. Here, Da Silva claimed to work for the Civil Aviation Authority, and produced forged references from the previous landlord and a bank manager, as well as forged documents saying he had been paid £2,000 by ‘RF DiCaprio’.
By the time of their arrest in October the couple owed £3900 in unpaid rent.
Mr Gutteridge told court that Da Silva was often seen walking around the building dressed in a pilot’s uniform and when the flat was raided two pilots’ uniforms were found hanging in the wardrobe.
In August he claimed to be an airline pilot at Singapore Airlines at a ‘payday advance’ service that cashes cheques for a fee.
He obtained £513.50 in cash and the cheques he handed over in return bounced.
When their flat was raided it was discovered that as well as stealing other residents’ mail they had been using a computer program to create a P60 from Singapore Airlines and Eon utility bills, used by Da Silva to swindle £2,024 of goods from a firm called Sage UK and by Campos to open joint account at NatWest.
Campos used the name Rodrigo Junior Cordosa when opening the account, produced an HSBC bank statement and Portugese ID card in that name, and claimed that Da Silva was a solicitor.
The raid at the couple’s flat also revealed that Da Silva had also also used the name Rodrigo Junior Cordoso to get loans from a company called MEM Finance Limited, faking his mother’s name to support the application. The loans were each paid to different bank accounts at the time the fraud was discovered he owed £875.
Meanwhile, Campos had run up an overdraft of £2,025 at Barclays Bank after using the name Cordoso to open an account with false documents which said he was a manager for Cafe Nero.
After being arrested Campos agreed to be removed to Brazil. In a bid to raise the cash to go with him Da Silva posed as a landlord to swindle £2,900 from househunters in two separate scams while on bail.
Sentencing the pair, Judge Andrew Gilbart QC, the Recorder of Manchester, said of Da Silva: “Despite the grandiose names he gave himself and fancying himself as Leonardo DiCaprio he’s actually a small-time conman.”
Who else has been locked up in May? Sentences and photo gallery
Tweet
Comments
Login or Register to comment
well he didnt have to walk far to get to the courts..he lives right opposite.
Nothing but low-life walter mitty idiots. If they spent half as much time learning a skilled trade and making a decent living from it, that lifestyle would have been perfectly attainable anyway. I might have to work for a living, but I know no-one can legally take it all from me.
My daughter and her fiance were two of the househunters this scumbag conned. They lost £1500 of hard earned cash to him. He was posing as the landlord to an appartment in Aytoun Street. They will not get a penny back. No doubt he will soon be back on the streets after serving probably less than half his sentence. When released the authorities should deport him.
The very same thing happened to a friend of mine three years ago in the 'green quarter'. He paid his deposit, gave up his old flat, and arrived with a van full of furniture and a ddorkey that didnt work to somebody elses flat.
The guy Di Caprio was based on was pretty cool. And very successful. This guy isn't comparable.
Di Craprio, Da Silva is all gone. Cordosing on the job, now both on the campos heap.
Hilarious, you lot are jealous that they had the gaul to do it arent you LOL, as shocking and terrible their actions are of course lol.