Plain tales from a fraudster

Working in a call centre in Scotland, Elliot Castro diligently noted down the security details of customers of a credit card company. Later, he would call the call centre impersonating the owner and order supplementary cards. Since he had the customer's personal details, he breezed through the security checks.

An alternative method was to report the cards lost and request a replacement be sent to a new address. The original addresses would be restored once the replacement cards were received.

Scams like this""with variations as Castro fine-tuned his techniques""financed mega-spending sprees in some of the world's toniest hotels in Toronto, the Bahamas, Dubai, the UK and Australia. Styling himself a hotel consultant, Castro lavishly spent other unsuspecting people's money to finance a millionaire's lifestyle.

By night, the surrogate cards bought him, among other things, magnum bottles of champagne and cocktails at expensive bars. Castro did not stint by day either. From Bond Street in London to Fifth Avenue in New York, he bought only the most upscale brands of clothes, shoes accessories and electronics.

Incredibly, despite several brushes with the police and prison stints, it took four years for Castro's life as a high-living fraudster to catch up with him at the ripe young age of 21. Sitting out two years in Her Majesty's prison, Castro recounts his incredible story to journalist Neil Forsyth.

Half Chilean, half Scots, Castro was a social misfit from childhood, chiefly on account of a high IQ. Unable to mix easily with other children, wilful and insolent with authority, Castro was shunted from school to school (he attended nine) until he finally dropped out. A taste for the high life came early during a flight to Santiago on a family emigration to Chile. Cooped up in Economy, he peeped through the curtains and spies the golden world of First Class.

Castro soon learnt that money and conspicuous consumption had a cauterising effect on his personality deficiencies. Expensive dressing and big spending habits were automatic passports to social acceptance. As he says, few questions were asked when a slightly shifty young man entered the First Class lounge of British Airways or checked into the Ritz dressed in Armani and carrying Louis Vuitton luggage.

The job in the call centre""his first attempt at formal employment""demonstrated to this highly intelligent but dysfunctional young man how high technology could be subverted to nefarious purposes.

Sacked from the centre for his inability to assimilate with co-workers, he took with him a notebook full of customer details. When his stock of duplicate cards ran out, Castro subsisted on robbery but found the work degrading.

As he explains with earnest pride, "The crime of fraud, when conducted well, is a fascinating and rewarding pursuit. It is a test of intellect, determination and stamina ... Being a thief is everything fraud is not. It is brutal and basic and horrible, but I didn't have a choice."

That occupation ended with a short stint in prison after which Castro decided to jettison low-grade thievery to pursue a full-time career of high-class fraudulence. By this time, he had learnt to leverage his photographic memory and perfected a way of extracting credit card details from hotel guests by impersonating hotel staff.

His first successful attempt bought him a lavish holiday in Canada. It also earned him a prison sentence there. But, incredibly, despite being deported, he managed to escape the police reception awaiting him. Thereafter, shuttling between Belfast and Dublin he was able to upgrade his skills, living the high life in a service apartment on the back of serial wire transfer frauds.

Castro's career as a fraudster lasted as long as it did chiefly because he learnt to take precautions""such as pre-flight booking checks""and heed his instincts. His problem was that he was unable to cover his tracks. Soon British Airways, American Express and the travel site Expedia cottoned on to him, which triggered an investigation by the British police.

The charm of the book is that it is neither a mea culpa nor is it didactic. It is an informative story told matter-of-factly, with no excuses leavened by flashes of wry humour. Most importantly, it provides credit card companies and their customers with useful hints on how to arm themselves against fraud.

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Other People's Mon£y
The Rise and Fall of Britain's Most Audacious Fraudster

Neil Forsyth with Elliot Castro
Macmillan
Price: £12.99; Pages: 313