PHOTOS: Former footballer who pretended to be Chelsea star to carry on champagne lifestyle is jailed

A washed-up footballer who pretended to be a Chelsea star to continue a champagne lifestyle has been jailed for four years.Former Derby County ace Medi Abalimba admitted multiple counts of fraud after he ran up bar tabs worth thousands of pounds while pretending to be Chelsea winger Gael Kakuta.

Abalimba, 25, who once commanded a £1 million transfer fee, also stayed in the best rooms in plush London hotels.

He dreamt up the scam after slipping down the leagues through lack of discipline and commitment, having lost his £20,000-a-week job with Derby County.

Eager to continue living the high life, the conman passed himself off as France under-21 star Kakuta at nightclubs and hotels.

                     

Manchester Crown Court heard how he would ring ahead and, using a fake American accent, pretend to be the agent of the Chelsea footballer.

Abalimba would then swan into the nightclub accompanied by an entourage of drivers, bodyguards and young women and proceed to rack up a bar bill worth thousands of pounds.

The court heard how once the night had finished con artist Abalimba would make excuses not to pay or use a stolen credit card to settle the massive bills.

During one incident he duped starstruck staff into running up a £25,000 bar tab on Cristal champagne in one West End club in London claiming ''he was a Premier League star and good for the money.''

He also ran up a £9,600 bill at three London luxury hotels, took a bar in Manchester for another £5,000, scrounged suites in luxury apartment complexes and spent £11,000 on limousines saying he had an American Express credit card.

Abalimba was also reported to have been hired a helicopter to take four women on a rooftop tour of London.

                                       

He was caught after he attempted to buy clothing worth more than £20,000 from a store at the Trafford Centre near Manchester on a dodgy credit card only for staff to become suspicious and retain the items.

When grilled by police he admitted he regularly broke into lockers at a sports club in Camden and, using master keys, stole and used his phone to photograph members' credit card details.

Jailing him for his scams which had a potential loss of £163,000, Judge Robert Atherton said: "This is a catalogue of offences of sophisticated dishonesty and fraud, representing that you were a person whom you were not.

"I hope that it has not caused to great an embarrassment to the person you professed to be, but as a person who himself is of considerable standing and renown it must have been of considerable embarrassment that his personal details were used.

"He is a victim as much or in many ways like others in this case, but the frauds did not begin by you assuming this identity."

Vic Wozny, mitigating, said Abalimba came to the UK from the Congo at the age of five with his mother and had a "rough upbringing" in London where he "ran with the wrong crowd".

However he was undoubtedly a talented footballer, scouted by Southend United before moving to Derby County, where he began earning lots of money.

But as a "local boy done good" his fame and fortune came with lots of "hangers on", Mr Wozny said, on whom the defendant would lavish his wages.

Mr Wozny said: "Eventually his discipline started to slide and he started to slide," and he dropped down the leagues.

He added: "When he started to slide and the money dried up, my client could not accept that he did not continue to live the high life. The offences started to happen. Thereafter my client's difficulties snowballed."

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