Love fraud conman who posed as millionaire wine trader jailed
Lasse Hartmann has been jailed for four years (credit: Met Police) - Credit: Archant
A serial conman who posed as a multi-millionaire wine dealer and spun a web of lies about his wealth has been jailed for four years.
Lasse Hartmann, 43, of Cardinals Way, Archway, began his scam in early 2014 when he started an online relationship with food blogger Adanma Wokoh who lives in Ilford.
Posing as a multi-millionaire wine dealer named Lars Petraeus, he swindled thousands of pounds from Ms Wokoh over the course of a 17-month relationship.
After winning her trust by making lavish purchases which he would put on his American Express card, she allowed him to control two inactive bank accounts belonging to her.
Ms Wokoh said it was a very upsetting period of her life.
She said: “I don’t want to be pitied, it is true I lost a lot of money but I didn’t lose the things that matter most, my creativity, my family and friends.”
Citing various tax and cash-flow problems, she ended up loaning him thousands of pounds that was never repaid.
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He went on to fleece her friends in the industry and even duped a wedding planner, whom he had hired to plan his wedding to Ms Wokoh, into investing £5,500 into his wine venture.
The planner also lost around £25,000 in lost revenue from business he turned down because he was organising the bogus wedding.
An online meat-trader who had entered into a business partnership with him, lost £20,000 after paying Hartmann for wine, fridges and IT equipment, with further losses of £17,000.
Hartmann then used the prestige of the meat company’s reputation to steal £11,000 from other victims.
A personal assistant and chauffeur he hired to keep up the charade were also left out of pocket to the tune of £25,000 in unpaid wages.
The driver lost a further £2,500 which he thought was being invested in wine
In total, Hartmann’s victims lost more than £104,000 to his fraud but only repaid £18,000, leaving many of the victims out of pocket for hundreds and thousands of pounds.
Yesterday, he was jailed for four years at Snaresbrook Crown Court for 22 counts of fraud.
He is also wanted by Danish authorities for breaching his sentence over there, for a similar scam and will be handed over once his sentence is served.
