Law&Crime Sidebar - Fake Millionaire’s Takedown Uncovered a Much Darker Secret

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

Jack Watkin, 26, will soon be sentenced to prison for multiple fraud and sex crime offenses. He entered a guilty plea after hearing the evidence UK prosecutors had against him in a massive scam involving luxury Hermès bags. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber spoke with UK attorney Nick Brett about the even darker crimes investigators uncovered when they dug into Watkin’s digital files.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If your child, under 21, has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, visit https://forthepeople.com/food to start a claim now!HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. You don't have to say anything, but it may harm your offense. You don't mention one question something later on in court. And if you do say, maybe give it evidence. Jack Watkins seem to have it all. Fancy clothes and shoes, luxury bags, luggage. glamorous lifestyle that he chronicled online, but it turns out it was all a lie. Watkin was just convicted of fraud in the UK, and all of his stories have unraveled. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

There is this bizarre case out of the United Kingdom that just wrapped up that we want to talk about, and it is some wild twists and turns that we just had to tell you about. So you have this unemployed con man who apparently managed to swindle people out of thousands of pounds, including, by the way, his own father. And it turns out this wasn't even his most sadistic crime. And we'll get to more than in just a minute. But 26-year-old Jack Watkin was once featured in a Channel 4 documentary called Rich Kids of Instagram, which chronicled the lives of some of Britain's most famous or influential young people. But it turns out, Watkin wasn't actually rich. He was just really good

at pretending to be. And investigators say he used that power to convince people to invest in fake schemes. And then he would just spend their money to further his lifestyle. The scam that brought everything crashing down for Watkin involved luxury Hermes bags. The bags can only be purchased directly from the company by select registered customers. If they're resold, they can sell for thousands and thousands of pounds. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Watkin created this fake business venture where he was supposedly one of these registered customers and was buying and selling exclusive handbags that most people didn't have access to. And he offered others the chance to buy and sell too at a profit. But once they handed over their money, they never saw it

again. So to keep up the ruse, investigators say Watkin used the funds he'd stolen, as well, as loans from banks or pawnbrokers to go on fancy vacations and stay at wildly expensive hotels like the Dorchester Hotel in London. Prosecutors say that between March of 2019 and December 2022, he spent more than 139,000 pounds at the Dorchester. He posted photos and videos of himself in exotic locations, wearing clothing and shoes from top fashion designers, carrying luxury bags. He even referred to himself as a Kardashian. of Cheshire. One of the women that he tried to defraud caught onto his scheme. And when she posted her suspicions to social media, things quickly started to unravel for Watkin. Okay, talk more about this.

I want to bring in London lawyer. Nick Brett, Nick, so good to see you. Thanks for coming back here on Sidebar. So this story certainly, you know, caught our eye here across the pond. What has been the reaction in the UK? A lot of people talking about it? Actually, there has been quite a lot of press coverage in all the main newspapers in the mail and the Guardian on the BBC, because as you say, he was featured, wasn't he, as a younger person on a documentary. And so he's brought notoriety onto himself over here, certainly. And just so people know, the Dorchester, it's a pretty fancy hotel, right? Exactly. I think £3,000 a night some of the rooms in the Dorchester, so pretty expensive. Hey everybody, this is another law and crime legal alert. Did you know that children are being diagnosed with serious conditions like type 2 diabetes

and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and the research is potentially linking ultra-processed foods to all this? Yeah, well, Morgan and Morgan, they're stepping in to fight to hold these food companies accountable. With decades of experience fighting large corporations, they are ready to stand up for the families who deserve justice. So if your child, under 21, has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, then visit www.4thepeople.com slash food or scan the QR code on screen to learn more. Isn't it interesting that the way he was caught was through social media, right? You know, we talk about it.

But that's sometimes it. We talk about investigative journalism as a way to spur, you know, an investigation into something that moves into the criminal arena, moves into an investigation. But social media has a strong power too. I mean, certainly it seems like he took on the wrong. doesn't it? I mean, he gained a lot of his notoriety and the false trappings of wealth through advertising via social media. But it seems that one of the people that he targeted as part of his fraudulent scheme was a local woman who sold designer handbags in Cheshire. And it was her

that placed an advertisement on Instagram, I think it was, claiming that she'd been defrauded. And that was then spotted by a close friend of his, I think whom he had defrauded nearly a hundred thousand pounds. And they arranged to meet up and detectives were called to the scene to arrest him. So Wacken was accused of defrauding several people. And that included his own father. Yeah. Now, this is just a whole other layer to this because this man claimed that he loaned his son 29,000 pounds in 2019. And according to the BBC, Watkins' dad spent the next year asking for his money back, but never got it. Another victim was a barman who worked at Harrods. This is a big, big, multi-layered department store. If you haven't been, it's awesome. The BBC reports

that he said that Watkin was a regular customer in the store, purported to be a millionaire. So when he asked the barman to loan him money, the victim thought, you know, he was good for it. He wasn't. Senior Crown Prosecutor Laura Atherton broke it down in a statement, quote, Jack Watkin was a serial liar who funded his luxury lifestyle by defrauding others, including his own father and a longtime friend of large sums of money over several years. He would tell his victims that he had connections that could source luxury goods for them, predominantly handbags such as Birkins and Hermes, or that he could get them himself. Some of the victims wanted the bags for themselves or his gifts to others.

Others thought that they were entering into a genuine business opportunity, lending Wotkin money to buy luxury items that he told them would generate a profit. It was all lies. Most of the goods and profits never materialized and the loans were never repaid in full. Nick, pretty brazen scheme, to say the least, right? I mean, what role do you think when you look at this? How was he able to do this? What are some factors that can help exacerbate something like this? Well, it's a classic investment scheme, isn't it?

And what you do is, as you already pointed out, advertise on social media that you're a wealthy person. You dress in expensive clothes, which you bought with the proceeds of your fraud, and you con other people into thinking that you're somebody that you're not. And in this particular case, Hermes, I think, only sells handbags to particular licensed customers, and he fraudulently made out that he was a licensed customer,

and obviously persuaded others to invest in that license, if you like, and gave them the opportunity to make profits to sell on the handbags. Designer items like these handbags, as I understand it, are very few and far between, and therefore they increase in value quite significantly because of their scarcity. And so that is really what he was buying into. And obviously he had this prior television show in which he portrayed himself, as a sort of Kardashian. I think he called himself of Cheshire.

And I think he comes from what I read of relatively wealthy families. So I think his father made some money in property. And so he's obviously been given advantages in life that allowed him to portray himself in a way that, you know, allowed him to defraud people. Now, one of the women who helped take Watkin down is Christine Colbert.

She owns this high-end vintage clothing boutique called Dress Cheshire, and she did an interview with the Times of London saying she first spoke with Watkin, who was using the name Jack Holding via email, and she'd assumed he was an older man, she told the time, so she was shocked when a then 21-year-old walked in, wanting to buy a bag that cost 35,000 pounds, but he was all smiles, he was charming, and Christine said he was very knowledgeable about the luxury goods industry. You know, there's something about this, Nick. Predators like this, they really embody the kind of character that they need to play. You mean, you've worked fraud cases. What do people need to look out for?

Well, I mean, that something's too good to be true. I mean, this lady obviously pointed out that he was quite a young person. I think he was accused of stealing handbags from her. But it's a classic confidence trickster, isn't he? somebody that takes somebody into their confidence and portrays themselves as wealthy and successful as a means of extracting money. I mean, I would say to anybody else to invest in something, to be vigilant, to ensure that you do your research before making investment. Most investment in the UK needs to be regulated and so you can do the relevant background checks.

Yeah, it's not full protection, but I hear you. And look, at some point, here's what happened. Watkin approached Christine with his business venture, involved buying and selling bags at a profit. She was interested. And she told the times that she lent him 5,000 pounds to buy a bag and soon received her money back plus $1,500 profit. But as she continued to do business with him,

she says he defrauded her of at least 130,000 pounds over two years. She says he always had a reason why he couldn't hand over the money immediately. And he also stood her. up when she tried to meet up with him in person. She told the times he would make excuses. He was always ill, abroad or entertaining. He would reassure me and say, don't worry, your money's going to come. I'm still going to return your bag. He was very clever at giving you hope. And she says at one point she even handed over a customer's handbag that she was helping them sell, which he'd offered to buy on behalf of his own client for more than 18,000 pounds. But when he only sent 11,000

pounds, she ended up covering the shortfall. She posted a warning on her. her Instagram account, letting people know that they needed to be on the lookout for a man known as Jack. And an old friend of Watkins saw that post and reached out to her. Turns out she had been defrauded too. So they hatched a plan. Okay. The old friend would lure Watkin to a pub, then call police to come and catch him. So his arrest on March 18th, 2024, was captured on body cam footage that was released by the Cheshire constabulary. I'll sit you in the car out of the privacy. If you can, you don't, you don't manhandling me.

I'm not going to hear you. Jack, I can assure you I'm not manhandling you. I've got hold of your arms in case you're not. I stand the practice. Right now. So you're going to be arrested now. So the time by marriage now is 1154 and you're going to be arrested for further offenses of fraud by false representation. possession of indecent images making indiscite images to shoot distributing

indecent images possession of extreme porn and prohibited images so the time by my watch now is 1154 you don't have to say anything but it may harm your defence you not mention when questioned something later on in court and if you do say maybe give it in evidence jack you have to put these costs on you for the journey so to go into the same way we went to last time to the custody suite night. And then what? And then we're obviously going to interview you. So we'll do with that matter now. I'll sort to in a minute. A long journey to talk about that. So give me two seconds. I want to know because I need to tell what you're doing. Well, I've just told you what's happening.

Yeah. At the seable future, you're going to be in our company for a good six hours. So that's where we're at the moment. Now, Christine told the times that she was in a nearby car watching the scene unfold and said she jumped out with excitement. And that was something that she had waited years for. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Watkin told investigators that it was actually his mother and an unnamed partner who were funding his lavish lifestyle and that despite being declared bankrupt in 2023, he always intended to pay back all the money that he borrowed, but he just needed more time. Now, Cheshire Police released photos of several items they found in Watkins' possession following his arrest, including multiple luxury bags, sneakers. there's more. Nick, we see this time and time again in fraud cases. The scammer always just needs a little more time,

a little more time to get you the money, a little more time to get you the product, the outcome you were expecting, and don't they come, do you think they become a little more sloppy? It also contains the classic confidence trick, doesn't it? But you give somebody a little bit of profit on the first transaction as a means of getting their confidence. And then you go on to defraud them by avoiding them

and then claiming you're going to pay them back later on. But it turns out there's another part to the story, because when police started digging into Watkins' digital files after his arrest, they discovered something far more sinister, child sexual abuse material. Yeah, according to court documents, Watkin was arrested again in October 24 on child sex crimes charges. He went to trial for those offenses earlier this year, was convicted of five counts of making indecent images of children, two counts of possessing indecent images of a child possessing prohibited images and possessing

an extreme pornographic image wild turn to this, Nick. I mean, wild turn to this case, but not completely unexpected in the sense that when somebody is arrested and investigators start looking at their background and their digital devices, that can lead to additional charges

or further investigation into other crimes, right? Absolutely. I mean, it's, the police will always seize mobile phones and other devices. And I think in this case, what they found on the mobile phone was pretty unpleasant indeed. And as you've said, there were a number of indecent images of children. And he was convicted of those crimes following a trial and will be sentenced in due course together with the fraud allegations, almost certainly to a fairly lengthy term of imprisonment. Yeah, because what happened, right? So it turns out between his two

arrests, the one in March, the one in October, why? He said he violated his bail conditions by defrauding another man of more than 800 pounds. So when his fraud case went to trial in Chester Crown Court last month, he decided to change his plea after hearing some of the evidence against him. He pleaded guilty to six offenses of fraud. You're not surprised by that, Nick? No, I'm not surprised by it. No.

Yeah, as you say, he pleaded guilty to six counts, I think, of fraud by false representation. and obviously having seen the evidence and having no real reasonable grounds to defend the case, he would have been advised by his lawyers, no doubt, that he would receive some credit by pleading guilty to the offences rather than putting his victims through a trial, which would aggravate the judge and obviously also aggravate the potential sentence he would receive. And what is that going to be? Because he's going to be sentenced for the sex crimes case and the fraud case on September 3rd, according to the BBC. What is he looking at?

Well, a fairly substantial sentence of imprisonment. It's a little bit difficult for me to put numbers on that because I just don't know. I haven't seen the evidence. But it seems to me that the sentences for the fraud are likely to be consecutive to those sentences for the indecent images because they're of a completely different character and totally unrelated. And so I would imagine that a judge will impose one sentence on top of the other. And then he must take into account what is called totalities.

So he must consider what the total sentence is. and ensure that that sentence is not too long in the circumstances. Is there mitigation that's available at a sentencing, and what would mitigation look like? Well, mitigation can really fall into two main, well, three main schools, really. One is background. And so I don't think he has any previous convictions, possibly a drink drive or something quite a minor I read about.

his the circumstances relating to the offending itself I mean possessing indecent images of children is not something that's likely to attract too much mitigation under any circumstances likewise the way in which he said about defrauding his victims is also going to be seen

in a pretty poor light his personal circumstances I know slightly less about and it's slightly difficult to say, whether or not there are sometimes issues relating to mental health or substance abuse or alcohol abuse, which can provide some explanation for the way in which people behave and can act as a mitigating feature. But I would consider that having read the facts that I've read, that he would be looking at a fairly significant sentence of imprisonment and quite rightly so.

fraud is a very serious problem in the United Kingdom now. And police resources are quite limited. And I think the victims in this case were probably quite fortunate that two of them were as, you know, careful in there, the way in which they were able to bring him to justice as they were. Otherwise, the crimes may well have been undetected. And what happens at a sentencing? Do the victims have a chance to speak? Would he have a chance to speak? How does it work? Victims are ordinarily asked to make what's called a victim impact statement. And so they make a witness statement setting out the reasons, what's setting out the, you know, how the crime has affected them. So the judge hears the victim impact evidence. He would hear the prosecution's summary of the case and the offending and the potentially. financial implications of it.

And then he would hear mitigation from the defense team. And then the judge would pass sentence. And following sentence, there may be what are called confiscation proceedings. So there may be a process whereby any assets that he has are confiscated from him in order to pay back to the victims, at least in part, their losses. Do you think there's anything he could say?

Anything that he could say that would help him? help him? I mean, I don't know enough about his personal circumstances. I certainly don't think there's anything he could say that we keep him out of prison for a fairly long time. I mean, it's really just a question of how long as opposed to whether he goes to prison. It's like a movie. It's like a movie. It really is like a movie. What would happen here? And I'm sure they'll make a movie of this, won't they? They may well do. I mean, he's in prison at the moment, as I understand it. I think he was remanded in custody after his pleas of guilty. So I think he is a waiting sentence in September in custody.

Nick Brett, thank you so much for taking the time. Always good to seeing you. Thank you very much for invite to me on Jesse. Good to see you too. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.