Unmasked: £355,000 love rat who tricked Shrewsbury woman and left her needing food banks
This is the face of the love rat fraudster who conned a woman out of hundreds of thousands of pounds, leaving her "broken-hearted, penniless and homeless".
Durmus Akca, who made £355,000 out of a Shrewsbury woman, swindling her out of her home and inheritance from her father, has been ordered to pay back £1.
The con artist was jailed in March of this year for five years and eight months for fraud by false representation, and has this week been back at Shrewsbury Crown Court for a proceeds of crime hearing.
In March, the court was told how the victim’s romantic dreams turned into a nightmare, forcing her to declare herself homeless and use food banks to feed herself. It put her “on the brink of suicide”.
Akca, of Stapleton Road, Belle Vue, Shrewsbury, and the victim, who is 25 years his senior and used to work in a bookmaker’s with him, spotted him on the streets one day in 2017. She took pity on him and let him stay at her home. A relationship as friends began to blossom.
Akca, now 41, asked her for a loan of £40,000 to launch a cafe business, which flopped. The victim bore the cost of the failed business, but it gave Akca a sense he could tap her for cash again.
The victim’s dad became ill and, with added care responsibilities and the emotional stress, she leaned on Akca for support and described him as “her rock”.
However Akca used the opportunity to worm his way into her affections, pestering her into giving him large sums of money.
She inherited £120,000 after her father died, then later, Akca asked for £40,000 to start a chicken farm with his brother.
He asked for another £32,000 to try and get a low-interest loan from a Turkish bank, as well as sums into the tens of thousands, claiming he and his brother needed it for bail from prison in Turkey.
Akca got her to sell her house and put the £115,000 generated into what he said was a joint account. The plan, as far as the victim knew, was for the money to be used for them to buy a house in Turkey together.
But when the Covid pandemic struck, Akca was in Turkey and she was in Shrewsbury.
Eventually, in August 2020, she joined him in Turkey but, instead of living together, he said their home was not ready, so put her up in a flat and left her on her own.
He occasionally returned and brought pizza and gin, but for the most part she was left alone with nobody for support in a new country.
Three months down the line, her son phoned and told her what had been going on, and she discovered Akca had taken all her money.
In a victim impact statement, she said: “He always promised to pay me back and I fell for it. I can’t believe how stupid I was. If you read it in a book, you would think ‘how can that woman be so stupid?’.
“I had no-one in my life that needed me. My kids had flown the nest. He needed me and I wanted to be needed.
“He has left me with a broken heart, a broken mind and in financial ruin.”
However, with the encouragement of friends and family, the victim bravely stepped forward and told police what Akca had done. He was investigated and prosecuted.
Judge Peter Barrie told Akca: “Most cases of fraud are about money. But this is about a human tragedy which was all your fault. You left her a penniless, homeless wreck.”
The victim celebrated Akca being jailed by popping a bottle of fizz outside court.