Similar scams were pulled off in Bristol and Leeds. “At some point during that fatal turn around to put that cash-counting machine away, the real money has been switched, the fake money has been substituted and the criminals had disappeared with the diamonds.”
It is immediately apparent it is not the same that he had counted in the hotel. The jewels were collected from Calleija’s shop and it was only when the gang were long gone that he discovered he had been scammed.ĭavid Hughes, prosecuting, said: “You can imagine the horror when he goes to check the cash. When the pair turned their backs to put the machine away, the tricksters switched the real euros for bundles of counterfeit cash. Calleija and a bodyguard then used his cash-counting machine to sift through bundles of genuine notes, amounting to almost €8m. Gang member Gianni Accamo, posing as a gem expert, went to inspect his stock of precious stones and a deal was struck at a Covent Garden hotel. In the biggest single swindle, jeweller John Calleija, who has a shop in the Royal Arcade, Old Bond Street, central London, and who counts royalty and actors among his clients, was defrauded of £6.1m. It required considerable ingenuity and effort to establish dishonest ends.”
You operated as a crime group, using reconnaissance and meticulous planning. The toy cash was sometimes sandwiched between real euro notes in piles of money, and on other occasions the word “Monopoly” was covered by paper bands used to hold the bundles together.Īt Bristol crown court, the judge, Julian Lambert, told the gang: “The fraud operated required you men to establish confidence in your victims so it was thought you could be trusted. A gang of conmen who used Monopoly money to trick jewellery dealers in a £7m scam have been ordered to go to jail.
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