A thirty-five-year-old man who spent £170,000 of someone else's money on luxury watches has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Shaunisedeen Braimoh, previously of London Road, Thornton Heath, was also ordered to repay £119,859 at Croydon Crown Court on September 15, 2009.

The confiscation order was a result of Mr Braimoh being charged and found guilty of dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit.

This money was then withdrawn in a number of different ways. Transactions were made at various post offices across London and Braimoh then changed the cash into euros which, it is believed, he sent abroad.

Two watches were also purchased at Harrods, at a cost of £22,000.

The banks involved became aware of the fraudulent activity, the accounts were frozen and £40,000 of the remaining cash was recovered.

In October 2007, Braimoh was arrested after he went to his bank to ask why he couldn’t withdraw any money.

He was subsequently charged and appeared at Croydon Crown Court on September 2008, where he claimed that the money had come from his uncle, who had come to the UK from Nigeria, and was running a business buying and selling cars.

But Braimoh was unable to produce any correspondence between himself and his uncle.

Following the verdict, a confiscation hearing was set in order to try and recover the funds that were outstanding.

The judge accepted the prosecution’s case that the missing funds and watches were assets that had been hidden by Braimoh and ordered that he repay £119,859 or face an extended sentence of two years in jail.

Detective Constable Joe Ryan, the financial investigator leading the confiscation case said: “The Payback Unit are dedicated to making sure crime doesn’t pay.

"Braimoh has discovered the hard way that even after conviction we continue to pursue criminals for their ill-gotten gains.”

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