A former footballer who enjoyed a champagne lifestyle masquerading as a Premier League player has been jailed for four years.
Medi Abalimba, 25, had earned up to £20,000 a week as a player at Derby County, but gradually fell out of the football league.
However, he continued to enjoy the high life by pretending to be Chelsea midfielder Gael Kakuta, staying in top London hotels, running up bar tabs of thousands of pounds and being chauffeur-driven in a Bentley, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Abalimba played professionally for Derby, Oldham Athletic, Southend United, Fulham and Crystal Palace and was once sold for a £1m fee.
He admitted 12 offences of fraud and dishonesty in London, West Yorkshire, Manchester and Derby worth a total of £163,000.
Judge Robert Atherton said: "There is here a catalogue of offences of sophisticated dishonesty, fraudulently representing that you were a person who you were not."
The court heard that Alibamba gained access to a gym in Camden, north London, where he obtained a key to the lockers and would take photos of American Express card numbers to use on his spending sprees.
Among the hotels he targeted was the Madarin Oriental Hotel, the Corinthia Hotel, the Millennium Knightsbridge Hotel and the Bulgari Hotel.
He also defrauded the Club Live nightclub in Manchester, Selfridges in Manchester's Trafford Centre and rented an £800 a night mansion in Ascot, Berkshire, where he was tracked down by officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and arrested on August 10.
Vic Wozny, defending Abalimba, said he had come to the UK from the Congo at the age of five and had a "rough upbringing" in London where he "ran with the wrong crowd".
He said: "When he started to slide and the money dried up, my client could not accept that he did not continue to live the high life.
"The offences started to happen. Thereafter my client's difficulties snowballed."
Sergeant Adam Cronshaw, from GMP, said: "It appears that Abalimba is a charming and charismatic individual who was able to call on his previous football experience and the fact he bears some resemblance to the real Gael Kakuta to deceive them.
"He became so skilled in lies and deceit that his character went from being plausible to unquestionable."
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