Conman snares fourth victim... from jail
A COnMAn who tricked three lovelorn women into handing over £120,000 after posing as a pilot seduced another victim – after contacting her from prison.
Ammar haider, 31, met the woman while on day release or home leave from the open jail where he was serving five years for fraud.
he even ‘married’ the love-struck healthcare executive in an Islamic ceremony. But before the wedding he was using her BMW to meet yet another woman he had been texting from jail.
The conman first approached the BMW owner last May – sending her a text which he pretended had been meant for his sister.
When she texted to say he had messaged the wrong person he called her, charming her with tales of his career as a pilot for the emirates airline.
The scam was a carbon copy of the trick he used to sweet-talk his earlier victims and soon she was seeing him every chance she could – with no idea he was a jailed criminal. Within months they were ‘married’.
yesterday, his 34-year-old ‘bride’ told of her anger that haider, a married father, could continue ‘messing with people’s lives’ even when in prison.
She said he told her ‘nearly all’ of the inmates at hMP hewell in Worcestershire have access to smuggled phones.
The woman added: ‘I can’t understand how somebody like him is able to carry on like this from a prison. More needs to be done to weed phones out of jails. I feel like I was sharing a bed with a stranger.’
The divorcee, who lives in a village outside Worcester, called for laws to force ‘emotional confidence tricksters’ such as haider to declare new relationships after a conviction.
She broke up with him last month, after discovering he had been messaging the second woman, 47. By then, she had spent around £4,000 on haider – who failed to repay her.
haider, of Birmingham, who has been released on licence, refused to comment about his conduct.
A Prison Service spokesman said: ‘using a mobile phone in prison is a crime. Anyone doing so can spend significantly longer behind bars.’