Businessman scammed casinos claiming he had £20 million

Mr Dahan

A London-based businessman pretended to be a real estate tycoon, in order to gamble vast sums in casinos.

Shy Dahan, 33, was in court this week accused of using forged Credit Suisse paperwork to mislead casino staff about his personal wealth.

He produced documents from the Gibraltar arm of the bank which showed that he had more than £20 million in his account, in order to gain credit at some of London’s most exclusive clubs and casinos.

Earlier this week, Southwark Crown Court heard that Mr Dahan posed as a successful real estate guru to Credit Suisse, boasting of properties in New York, Toronto, Mexico, and Israel.

Mr Dahan claimed to be the owner of S Capital Group, and his personal website states that he “fulfils his dreams, turning visions into skyscrapers and swarming estates”.

However, jurors were told that the blurb and details of his company had been directly taken from a real-life firm’s website called Canada-Israel.

Prosecutor, Simon Wild, said: “Every single last word of it is a complete lie, a complete gigantic lie.

“Mr Dahan is a businessman, but what businessman he exactly was is partly what this case is all about.”

The prosecution argue that the defendant feigned his success, pretending to be much more substantial and wealthy businessman than he was in reality.

Credit Suisse showed the court a letter for Mr Dahan which declared that he had liquid assets of over £20m, after he duped them into believing that he owned the successful S Capital Group.

It is alleged that Mr Dahan then used the statement to target London Clubs International, including its super casinos in the West End, which includes the Playboy Club in Piccadilly and The Casino at the Empire in Leicester Square.

The court heard that on November 27, 2012, Mr Dahan visited a London Club casino and produced the Credit Suisse letter, informing them that he had more than £1 million in his bank account.

The Casino at the Empire was one of several venues targeted by Mr Dahan.

Nine days later on December 6, Mr Dahan gave the same statement to the Clermont Club in Berkeley Square in London’s exclusive Mayfair district, claiming he had over £20m in liquid assets.

However, he was caught out by the Clermont Club.

The following day, Mr Dahan then made false statements to the Gambling Commission in a letter which, the court heard, he had hoped would help an associate to open a casino in a London Hilton hotel.

It is alleged that he claimed that he had more than £20 million in liquid assets and that the assets were “realisable within 24 hours”.

The court were also informed that Mr Dahan, lost £230,000 playing at the Playboy Club, having gained entry after claiming that he had £1m sitting in his account.

It is alleged that he supplied a forged Credit Suisse letter to bosses at the casino, in order so that he could pay his losses via cheque.

The prosecutor, Mr Wild, said: “The defendant also wanted to pay by cheque for his gambling. He had to satisfy the club that he did indeed have a bank account from which he could pay cheques he could honour”.

Jurors were told that Mr Dahan supplied a Credit Suisse letter to the Playboy Club on November 27, 2012, informing the club that he had a “long standing relationship with the bank”, despite the fact that he had only opened his account three months previous.

The letter also stated that Mr Dahan had a bank balance of over £1 million, when, in reality the figure was actually $439,409.78 (less than £300,000).

“So that letter was very simply a lie,” Mr Wild said. “A pretty substantial lie as the Playboy Club was left £230,000 out of pocket”.

Mr Wild added that “When the defendant was arrested and interviewed in June 2013 he was asked how substantial a businessman he was.

“He said that he had a company in Mexico called ID Exchange and that this company had several retail outlets”.

The court heard how Mr Dahan had told officers that he sold “Dead Sea products”, handcuffs called “cuffs of love”, spinners as well as hair straighteners, and also a bungee jumping operation.

Mr Dahan, of Mayfair, London, and formerly of Tel-Aviv in Israel, denies four counts of fraud by false representation.

The trial is on-going.