 A bus driver who used a printing press at home to produce £161,000 worth of fake bus, train and Metro tickets in a sophisticated scam has been jailed. Steven Taylor, 55, printed thousands of counterfeit monthly travel passes which were then sold to passengers at discounted prices so he could pocket the fares. A court heard he used a printing press to produce the high-quality bogus tickets before employing a network of sellers to move them on. The passes for the West Midlands travel network were sold at £40 for adult passes and £20 for children, when they should have cost £100 and £50. The fraudster's con was eventually rumbled in 2017, three-and-half years after he began, as he defrauded travel companies out of over £160,000. Taylor, of Wolverhampton, was found guilty of conspiracy to supply articles for the use in fraud and possession of articles for the use in fraud. But he was sentenced in his absence to four-and-a-half years in prison after Birmingham Crown Court was told he had fled to Tanzania. A warrant had previously been issued for Taylor's arrest after he flew to Africa ahead of his court case. His whereabouts is still unknown. Judge Melbourne Inman KC said 'The nature of the offence was that you obtained the ability, no doubt through the relevant software, to provide counterfeit tickets for the use on trains, buses and the Metro in the West Midlands. 'The tickets that were counterfeited were monthly tickets that would normally cost £100 each for adults and £50 each for children. 'It is quite clear this was a sophisticated operation and went on for a considerable amount of time, about three-and-a half years, without being detected.' The court was told the fraud took place between January 2014 and August 2017 and others had been duped into believing the tickets were genuine. Daniel Oscroft, prosecuting, said: 'The defendant was the prime mover in a soph){kind=link}
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A bus driver who used a printing press at home to produce £161,000 worth of fake bus, train and Metro tickets in a sophisticated scam has been jailed.
Steven Taylor, 55, printed thousands of counterfeit monthly travel passes which were then sold to passengers at discounted prices so he could pocket the fares.
A court heard he used a printing press to produce the high-quality bogus tickets before employing a network of sellers to move them on.
The passes for the West Midlands travel network were sold at £40 for adult passes and £20 for children, when they should have cost £100 and £50.