Fraudster caught in Tinder swindle stole £43,000 from work to pay con artist lover

Fay Roberts, aged 59, siphoned off cash from Ifor Williams Trailers to pay for a purported building contract in the Philippines for her businessman boyfriend, "Charles," who she met on the dating app.

However, he proved to be a con artist, as did another man who duped her called "Mick" who claimed to be from the Tax Office and able to get her a refund of £260,000.

Mold Crown Court heard how she converted the money to Bitcoin to pay the scammers, who disappeared with her cash without a trace.

To find the funds for "Charles" and "Mick", Roberts, who worked as an administrator for the trailer company at its head office about 20 minutes west of Llangollen in Corwen, Mid Wales, took lump sums of up to £5,000 at a time.

Part of her role was taking cash from customers and banking it with a security company. Only she and one senior manager at the firm had access to the money.

She had been working there since November 2021 but, after a while, the firm's finance manager Emma Cleland started investigating her when she noticed "anomalies" with the figures.

The court was told how Ms Cleland tried to speak to Roberts on a number of occasions, who came up with excuses not to, and said she was "busy".

A visit was made to the site in October 2022 to investigate the finances and why there was a black hole of several thousand pounds in the accounts, but Roberts told bosses she had banked £48,000 the previous day.