Sencer Sevket jailed for £1.5m film loan fraud
A conman who ripped off a film financier by pocketing £1.5m to arrange a bogus multimillion-pound loan for movie projects has been jailed.
Sencer Sevket, 54, told Forrest Motion Pictures executive Leslie Sheldon that he could obtain £30m in 2009.
But he claimed he needed an advance of £1.5m to obtain the funds, which he then used to pay off his debts.
Sevket, of St Katharine Docks in Wapping, east London, was jailed for seven years, at the Old Bailey.
He was arrested in 2010 after trying to carry out another scam and subsequently found guilty of fraud and possessing promissory notes for use in fraud.
Sentencing Sevket, Judge Brian O'Neill QC described the fraud as "extensive and skilfully planned".
"You saw in Leslie Sheldon a soft target and you targeted him," he added.
After taking the £1.5m from Forrest Motion Pictures, Sevket then tried to defraud others using promissory notes he had created.
But this time his intended victims carried out due diligence procedures and realised that they were being duped before reporting him to the police.
Forrest Motion Pictures was involved in obtaining funds for films such as Valiant, a computer-animated story about wartime pigeons which was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.