Elliot Castro (born 1982) is a Scottish
fraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compen ...
prevention consultant and ex-fraudster from
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated pop ...
who claims he swindled approximately
$2.8 million through various
financial crime
Financial crime is crime committed against property, involving the unlawful conversion of the ownership of property (belonging to one person) to one's own personal use and benefit. Financial crimes may involve fraud ( cheque fraud, credit card ...
s when he was a teenager.
Career
Castro claims that his first brush with
criminality
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
was when he, as a teenager, found a
credit card
A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...
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
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compen ...
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.
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
Rolex SA () is a British-founded Swiss watch designer and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex'' as the brand name of ...
, spent upwards of $15,000 at nightclubs and traveled the world. Castro claims to have travelled to every country in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...
with the money from his victims. He was briefly jailed in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
and stole the credit card of the Canadian Immigration Office to book a flight back to Glasgow.
After returning to England at the age of 22, he was
jailed
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correct ...
for two years. After prison, he stopped defrauding people and began working legitimately as fraud prevention consultant for several firms.
See also
*
Frank Abagnale
Frank William Abagnale Jr. (; born April 27, 1948) is an American author and convicted felon. Abagnale targeted individuals and small businesses yet gained notoriety in the late 1970s by claiming a diverse range of victimless workplace frauds, ...
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Castro, Elliot
20th-century Scottish criminals
21st-century Scottish criminals
Living people
Date of birth missing (living people)
Impostors
Criminals from Glasgow
Scottish fraudsters
Scottish male criminals
Scottish white-collar criminals
1982 births