Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Former fraudster Tony Sales who stole $32M on how to avoid scams - Part 1

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

We chat with the reformed convict, Tony Sales who was known as Britain's Greatest Fraudster about his notorious scamming career and how he turned over a new leaf. Listen to part two - out now!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a heap of scams going around at the moment. So many Kiwis are getting scammed and we've been talking to people about what you can do if you do get scammed and some of the things we could look out for and we've tracked down a guy who was labelled Britain's greatest fraudster. He scammed over 30 million dollars throughout many many years of scamming and now he works in helping people how to avoid getting scammed. Yeah, and his name is Tony Sales. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Lovely, lovely to have you on, Tony. Now, geez, you've got an interesting story, an interesting backstory. It's kind of interesting, I guess, yeah. Is it more interesting than my bleak life, Tony? That's right. A reformed fraudster. You've co-founded a prevention group called We Fight Fraud. So much expertise I imagine you can help out with people at the moment because particularly

in New Zealand there's a lot of people being scammed. So let's go right back to the start. Your first credit card fraud was like at 13 years old, is that right? Yeah, I think it was about 13 when I committed my first credit card fraud, yeah. I started committing crime very early on in my life and, yeah, it just escalated really quickly. Now, you had a very difficult upbringing, which led to you getting involved in the underworld of crime.

So 13 years old, that's a very impressionable age to start sort of committing credit card fraud. And if you're starting there, what was the next step? So starting with committing credit card fraud was if you're starting there what was the next step so starting with committing credit card fraud was like it was a start but then you get into how do i manufacture credit cards how do i know how can i still attract to information that's on the back of the cards that would allow me to become a wholesaler in the cards yeah finishes up with mortgage fraud i went through identity theft you know where you could steal someone's identity

and then go and get stuff on credit, whether that be houses or cars or whatever it was. I just wanted to be someone else, you know. I'd had a really rubbish upbringing. And being someone else, actually being able to steal someone's identity and become them just gave me a sense of relief at the time. I would be saying, feel good for five minutes, you know.

You get over the money side of things when you're traumatised like I was because you're doing it for a different reason. Yeah, because 30 million pounds was something you were estimated to have collected over that time, that time period. A pretty huge amount. And what was the most common way that you used to fraud people? What would happen, like I said, it started with credit card fraud and then it leads into identity theft.

And all of a sudden you're getting orders from Swedish furniture stores, right, that come to thousands of pounds that you're getting for people. Flat screen TVs are starting to become popular back then and you realize that the credit system the way that the actual credit system is built it's the same across the board so it doesn't matter whether i'm going for a car or a house you know there's a few more checks on a house the reality is i'm not looking to actually get the house i figured out that if you've got the actual mortgage offer and then obtained a dodgy solicitor um i would be able to raise mortgage offers and then with the dodgy lawyer i'd be able to draw down those funds and that's how i accumulated a lot of the money that i stole came from those sort of things you know a house in the uk at the time is probably 400 000

you do 10 of them you're into four mil i would do it UK at the time is probably 400,000. You do 10 of them, you're into four mil. Jeez. I would do 10 at a time. Oh, my God. So you get the house deposit from the bank and then just run away with the money. You had super yachts. You had Bentleys.

Like, what was the wildest thing you ended up owning? I mean, I had apartments in foreign countries and things like that. I had a very nice house here in the UK. All my friends had stuff. We all done very well. It wasn't just me. Yeah, there's a whole network of people.

And so I wasn't brash and flash because by being brash and flash would lead to getting caught, right? Well, at the time you said you did it to feel like someone else, did you have the feelings of guilt or remorse? At the beginning, no. Like, kind of really in adulthood, no. Never got no feelings of guilt until I got arrested. Whilst I was in custody, the police officer came down to the cell. She said to me, I hope you're proud of yourself.

And I said, why would I be proud of myself? What are you talking about? And she said, well, I've got a young lady upstairs whose father passed away and you stole his identity. And that was the first part of changing my life. Because up until that point, I'm only ever seeing a name that appears on a computer screen or in a library book. I'm only ever making the ID that has my face or my friend's face on it.

I can't relate it to anyone else. And to be honest with you, I'm absolutely wrapped up in my own self at that time. I don't care about anyone else. I just think about what's wrong with me. Like, oh, poor me, poor me, poor me. That's how I was feeling at that time. So I'm not going to be able to even think like that. And then when she said that to me, that triggered it.

And then I actually jumped bow and became a fugitive for six years. I spent six years of my life on the run. Now that is Tony Sales, Britain's biggest fraudster. That is part one of our interview with him. We talked to him for ages. And as he mentioned, he goes on the run and he pulls out his teeth so he can't be avoided by dental records, how his family didn't know that they were

fugitives. It's a crazy story and tomorrow he's going to tell you how you can avoid being scammed.