Smooth-Talking Ticket-Tout Conman With String Of Lovers Must Pay Over £300K

A bogus ticket agent, who accumulated a small fortune while living illegally in the UK, has been ordered to pay back £308,380 or go to prison for an additional three years.

Haiti-born U.S. citizen Samuel Ernest, 47, (pictured) posed as a high-end agent, even targeting children's charity 'Childline' during a complex scam.

Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court heard Ernest accumulated the sum between 2006 and 2012 and must pay it within six months.

He originally admitted a £48,000 fraud involving 17 counts following an extensive investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service's Central Criminal Finances Team and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years.

He had pretended to run his own high profile corporate hospitality business and claimed to be associated to Prestige Ticketing Limited, the official provider of Olympic Hospitality Packages for the London 2012 Games, in order to convince people to buy non-existent tickets from him. 



The first of his victims to come forward was a 46-year-old woman who he dated with a view to defrauding her and her family.

The victim met Ernest at a Christmas party in 2011 and he persuaded her that he was credible by taking her to the British Independent Film Awards before convincing her to give him £3,900 for London 2012 Olympic tickets for herself and her family.

The tickets never materialized and Ernest disappeared after he got her money.



Other events that he convinced his victims he could get them tickets for included the MOBO Awards, Formula 1 Grand Prix, Champions League, the BAFTA Awards, the Wimbledon Championships, Cannes Film Festival, Cheltenham Festival Races, Les Misérables, a Harry Potter Film premiere, a Take That concert, a meet-and-greet with Bruce Springsteen and an Olympics charity dinner supposedly hosted by David Beckham, but which was completely fabricated by Ernest.



On one occasion, Ernest bid for London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony tickets, dinner with a celebrity chef and a night in a top London hotel, at a Childline silent auction.

He won the bid and claimed the tickets, which he then sold on for £4,000, however the money has never been paid to the charity.



The greatest sum of money he defrauded a single victim of was £9,250 - paid by a financial services firm for a combined total of 38 tickets for Take That concerts and Champions League matches. 



He also conned a dentist in Halifax, West Yorkshire, into paying £1,500 for tickets to a Harry Potter film premiere in London.

The dentist offered the tickets as a prize in a competition for his patients and when a 15-year-old girl won she and her family travelled to London for the premiere, only to find no tickets had been purchased. 



The vast majority of Ernest's victims were instructed to transfer money to a woman who he claimed was his accountant.

Ernest had the woman's bank card and PIN which he used to withdraw an average of £1,600 per month from cashpoints.

He also used the card to buy meals at luxury restaurants in London and Brighton.



In August 2012, police began investigating Ernest, who was of no fixed address and had been staying with women at various addresses across the UK.

Knowing that detectives were looking for him, Ernest rang one of the investigating officers to taunt him that he was not going to hand himself in, however detectives worked doggedly to track him down and just 19 days later they traced Ernest - who does have links to addresses in New York, San Francisco, California and Cannes - to a bed and breakfast in Birmingham. 



Police stopped him as he was leaving the bed and breakfast.

Ernest attempted to pass himself off as his twin brother by presenting his passport before unsuccessfully trying to run away. 



During the course of their investigation, specialist financial investigators gathered 67 witness statements in five weeks; scrutinized six years-worth of bank statements - an arduous task given that money was frequently being moved on an hourly basis - and analysed over 46,000 text messages exchanged between Ernest and his victims.

They also seized a number of genuine events tickets from him, including for Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday celebrations and a Heston Blumenthal supper night, which he had used as examples to convince people of his credentials.

Sometimes he gave these tickets to people by way of consolation or to placate them when he did not deliver the goods that they had actually paid for.



Detective Superintendent Nick Downing said: "Ernest convinced his victims that he was a high-flying corporate hospitality organiser with a network of high-profile contacts that included celebrities.

“In fact, he is an audacious confidence trickster with no feeling for his victims, including those women whose emotions he exploited to get to their money. 



"Such was the extent of Ernest's self-belief that he tried to pass himself off as his twin brother.

“It was only when he eventually came to court that he admitted who he was.

“Ernest didn't believe that we would find him but he underestimated my detectives' sheer determination and dogged pursuit.



"This confiscation order is an example to others that if you're making money from crime, we won't stop at convicting you - we'll also come after your cash."



The prosecution of Barbara Howell, 57, of Ilkeston Drive, Aspull, Wigan - who was originally arrested and charged in connection with this case was discontinued.