£58,000 conman is ordered to pay back JUST £10 after Shropshire pensioner swindled
A conman who stole more than £58,000 from his elderly Shropshire victim will only have to pay £10 back.
A proceeds of crime hearing at Shrewsbury Crown Court, relating to £58,452 Lamin Conteh swindled out of a vulnerable Craven Arms pensioner, gave the conman seven days to pay the sum.
The prosecution had been looking to repossess a Land Rover, which is currently in Gambia, to sell and recover some of the money.
Judge Jim Tindal said it would not be practical to try to sell the vehicle in Gambia.
Conteh, a Swedish national, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail for the offence in November last year.
He appeared at the latest hearing by video link from prison.
The conman, who was 43 at the time he was sentenced, had convinced his victim he was paying into an insurance scheme in Sweden that would pay out £178,000.
Over a period of seven years, Conteh took a total of £58,452, from the pensioner.
Shrewsbury Crown Court was told at the time of sentencing that the victim had been forced to move out of his home and was now living in a care home.
The scheme was completely fictitious and Conteh, from Coventry, had been using the money to fund an online gambling habit.
In a victim impact statement the man, aged 86 at the time, said the theft had “taken away my self respect” and “broken my trust in human nature”.
He said: “No matter what he is sentenced it won’t be good enough even if it is life because I have lost everything.”
During sentencing, Mrs Raquel Simpson, prosecuting, said £54,970 had been taken in cash transfers to Conteh’s Nationwide bank account.
The court was also told that Conteh had also used the victim’s bank card to order items from Amazon without his consent. The fraud had taken place from 2008 to 2015.
The victim spoke of the impact of the crime in a statement read out by Mrs Simpson.
He said: “I fell out with my family because I did not feel I could tell them what has happened.”
