A fraudster who dubbed himself “the Kardashian of Cheshire” has been jailed for six years after conning victims, including his own father and friends, out of thousands of pounds in a luxury handbag scam.
Jack Watkin, 26, used an “outward persona of someone wealthy and well connected” to persuade his victims to loan him large sums of money to invest in the purchase of Hermes handbags which were then to be sold on for a profit.
Such bags were only available to a select number of registered customers and, because of their exclusivity, the bags often attracted a resale value far more than the original price, Chester Crown Court heard.
The investors were left out of pocket as Watkin used their cash to fund a luxury lifestyle which included running up a £140,000 bill at London’s Dorchester Hotel.
Watkin, of Alderley Edge, Cheshire, had no job and no income but spent £1.2 million between April 2019 and October 2021 before he was made bankrupt.
He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to various counts of fraud totalling more than £195,000.
In a separate case he was found guilty by a jury of possessing and making indecent images of children, which were found on his phone by investigators after his fraud arrests.
On Monday, he was sentenced to four and a half years in jail for the fraud offences and an additional 18 months for the indecent images.
Judge Simon Berkson told him: “You used an outward persona of someone who was wealthy and well connected in order to dupe victims with your fraudulent behaviour.
“You described yourself as a millionaire and talked about your knowledge of luxury products.
“You suggested you could be a person who could be trusted with other people’s money. Your true motivation was to defraud people of out their money and spend it all on yourself.”
