Fraudster who cost TfL £1m by selling youth Oyster cards to adults jailed

Shaquille Moore will do time behind bars
BTP
Ellena Cruse12 October 2020
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A fraudster who sold youth Oyster cards to adults, enabling them to travel at a cheaper price, has been jailed.

Shaquille Moore, 27, of Trenholme Road, Anerley, is thought have cost Transport for London about £1million in lost revenue over a period of eight months.

Between May and December 2018 he sold 16+ Zip Oyster photocards through social media under the alias ‘Ben Franklin’.

He offered individuals aged 18 and over the opportunity to buy a photocard that would allow them to travel at half the price or free across the TfL network.

TfL lost £1m in revue from the scam
PA

Moore also offered an additional service of falsifying documents with fake dates of births in order to create Oyster accounts online.

This included the production of fake identification documents to enable clients to complete the proof of age step of the Oyster verification process.

TfL caught onto the scam after two employees reported suspected fraudulent activities relating to Oyster cards on social media in summer 2018.

Commuters with fake IDs were found and upon prosecution, they revealed how they had bought the photo cards. The money was then traced to bank accounts in Moore's name.

After a successful investigation by the British Transport Police (BTP), with the support of TfL, he was located, arrested and charged with fraud by false representation.

Moore pleaded guilty to the offences and was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison at Inner London Crown Court.

BTP Detective Constable, Mark Pink, said: “This was a pre-planned, sophisticated fraud that continued for a prolonged period of time. Moore made over £35,000 from his criminality and his activity resulted in significant revenue loss for TfL.

“We've worked closely with TfL to bring Moore to justice and the sentence passed down to him today shows that this type of criminality will not be tolerated.”

Richard Mullings, TfL’s Head of Counter-Fraud and Corruption, said: “Fare evasion and fraud deprives the capital’s public transport system of millions of pounds of investment - money that should have been used to improve the buses, Tubes and roads for everyone. This latest conviction shows that we take a zero tolerance approach to anyone defrauding Londoners.

"We will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who fraudulently offers for sale Oyster cards to customers who are not eligible for our discounts, and those who purchase them to deliberately avoid paying for their travel.

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