A HONEYTRAP con artist alleged to have tricked a man out of £35,500 may have "hundreds" of other victims, a police detective has said.
An investigation by the Advertiser has traced a dating website scam to Selhurst travel agent Neelam Desai, who is accused of deceiving a man she contacted on a dating website by creating a fake identity and pretending she wanted to go on expensive holidays with him.
Desai, 33, appeared in court last Monday and pleaded guilty to a string of other frauds, relating to the international travel business she ran under a false name after being made bankrupt.
Detective Constable Lee Haslett, who was involved in the investigation of those offences, told the Advertiser this week that Desai, of Beulah Grove, Selhurst, set up a business in 2009 selling holidays and flights at discount prices, mainly to people within the Asian community.
While some of her customers did get what they booked, others demanded their money back when the holidays they paid for never materialised.
Det Con Haslett said: "The business was built up through word of mouth because people were getting holidays on the cheap, so told their friends because they thought it was great.
"But there came a point when Neelam didn't have the money to pay for people's holidays, and her customers started not getting what they had paid for."
As the money she owed mounted, Desai borrowed hundreds of thousands of pounds from business contacts.
"She had built up a relationship with a couple of wealthy people and they ended up loaning her substantial sums of money because they had recommended her to friends and clients and they didn't want to lose out," said Det Con Haslett.
"Neelam said she would pay them back, but tried to do so out of her mother's bank account which she wasn't authorised to do and she knew there was no money in the account any way."
The cheques, for £150,000 and £70,000, bounced and the police were contacted. Desai was also charged with – and has since admitted – three counts of handling stolen goods after she made out fraudulent cheques in an attempt to repay customers, who had booked a holiday with her that never happened.
While a small number of people reported Desai to the police, Det Con Haslett believes there are many more victims, especially in light of the dating website exposé.
He said: "The travel records we have seen during the investigation have shown this was a large-scale operation, so its inevitable there were other victims.
"I would say there were probably hundreds, though it's difficult to be precise as some did get holidays even if most did not.
"As the Advertiser knows from its investigations, a lot of people are very embarrassed that they fell for it. That's what stops them going to the police."
Desai, who also pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud after trying to sell iPhones she did not have, now faces a confiscation hearing and is due to be sentenced on March 28.
Det Con Haslett appealed for anyone who believes they may have fallen foul of her scams to get in touch by calling police on 101 or via the Action Fraud website at www.actionfraud.police.uk
Is she sorry? Desai came across as "someone to feel sorry for" during her police interview, but never expressed remorse for her crimes. Police have found no evidence of her living the high life as a result of her frauds. Detective Constable Lee Haslett said: "We're looking at her finances with a view to confiscation, but there's nothing at the moment which suggests she has a stack of money hidden away. "Whether she spent the money on material items I don't know, but her house is modest and she hasn't got flash cars." Det Con Haslett added: "She comes across as someone to feel sorry for. She doesn't come across as obnoxious. She's quietly spoken and polite. "When we interviewed her she admitted most of what she was accused of. "She made it out that it was a mistake resulting from a bad business, but never showed any remorse as far as I'm concerned. "However, what she is now being accused of is more serious. To create a fake identity and scam someone she met through a dating website is quite sophisticated." "She had to keep up a relationship for a long period of time. It would be more than just a business mistake."Desai 'promises to repay victim' NEELAM Desai has promised to repay the man who fell victim to the dating website holiday con, despite denying the allegations through her solicitor. Among the offences Desai pleaded guilty to at Croydon Crown Court was running her business – under the name Nisha Patel – despite being made bankrupt in March 2009. Last week the Advertiser featured an interview with a 35-year-old man from Leicester who claims to have been conned out of £35,500 by a woman who called herself Nisha Patel, who contacted him through Shaadi, an Asian marriage website. He emptied the £15,000 joint life-savings he held with his father and took out a bank loan of £9,000 in the belief he was paying for holidays with the woman he had fallen for but never met. The was mostly paid to her "travel agent" – "N.Desai". But the trips never happened and "Nisha" refused to pay him back. He later discovered the woman did not exist and that the pictures he had been sent of her had been taken from another person's Facebook page. The Advertiser put the allegations to Desai at her home last Tuesday and then to her solicitor Glen Fell, from Croydon-based Brooke Lavington Law, the following day. After the paper had gone to press last Thursday, Mr Fell contacted the Advertiser and said his client denied all the allegations – which occurred while she was on bail for the offences she has since pleaded guilty to. However, the man from Leicester said he has since received several calls from "Nisha Patel" complaining that a journalist had visited her house and asking him not to continue his complaint with the police. Initially she promised to repay the £35,500 by this Monday but has now said she will do so by today (Friday).