Con man jailed for £1m airport parking scam
Holidaymakers’ cars were left in muddy fields or on street corners as firm lied about Gatwick compound
AN AIRPORT parking scammer has been jailed in one of the first cases of its kind after he made £1.4million leaving holidaymakers’ cars in muddy fields with keys stuck on the windows.
Asad Malik, 38, used fake reviews and photographs of a secure car park hundreds of miles away to trick customers into booking parking spaces when they flew from Gatwick.
His company then dumped the cars in muddy fields, or even on street corners. One owner found their car had been driven 185 miles while they were away. Others came home to find damage or unpaid parking tickets and one man even saw his car on a TV news bulletin while he was in Spain.
Jailing Malik for 14 months at Brighton Crown Court, Judge Paul Tain said that the way the company was run was “almost as if it was a joke”.
Despite concerns about the industry, it is believed to be one of the first times an airport parking boss has been jailed for scamming customers.
Malik, from Crawley, Surrey, used a photograph of a hospital car park 400 miles away in Scotland to trick travellers into believing their cars were safe when they left them with London Parking Gatwick and Easy Meet and Greet Gatwick.
The websites claimed that the cars would be parked by professional chauffeurs in secure compounds with CCTV.
But when the company was investigated by Trading Standards, inspectors found hundreds of cars at several locations parked in muddy fields and even in bushes. Some cars were unlocked with windows open and keys in plastic wallets stuck to the windscreen. Some cars came back damaged and others were not returned at all, the court heard.
A jury found Malik guilty of three counts of defrauding or misleading customers, in breach of consumer protection laws.
Judge Tain said: “It was almost as if it was a joke. One example was a customer complaining about cigarette ash in the car, and being told it must have blown in through the window of another car. Another reported their clutch was burnt out. That exemplifies the approach being taken – customers who had difficulties were fobbed off in the hope they would go away.”
Malik was also disqualified from acting as a company director of any business for the next four years.
The Pakistani businessman had worked for BT and as a taxi driver in Crawley after completing a masters in Satellite Communications and Space Studies at the University of Sussex in Brighton.
He set up his first Gatwick valet parking firm in 2014 and in 20 months of trading more than £1.4 million passed through the company accounts.
Richard Sargeant, Trading Standards team manager for West Sussex County Council, said: “Malik and his company deceived thousands of customers between 2014 and 2016, causing damage to their cars and making false claims on their website.
“I would urge anyone using a Gatwick meet and greet business to only use a Trading Standards-approved company.”
‘Customers who had difficulties were fobbed off in the hope they would go away’
Aman has been jailed for taking more than £1 million to keep people’s cars safe while they flew abroad, but then leaving them caked in mud in a field, some with their keys in a plastic bag stuck to the windscreen. While this is just the sort of thing we fear might happen to the car while we’re away, it is striking that so many people were gulled into making it possible. That’s the trouble with airports. They attract a miasma of anxiety, gloom and submission. Where else in the world could we be persuaded to pour expensive bottled water down the drain and then, after taking our shoes off like prisoners in a police station, buy even more expensive water for the dry hours in an airless lounge waiting for a flight, with no telling when it might come? If we accept such service, no wonder we hand over the car for a mud-bath.