Three concert promoters jailed for £1.2m air ticket fraud

Three crooked concert promoters who flew models and musicians around the globe with profits from a £1.2million airline ticket scam have been jailed for a total of 13 years.

Michael Sanchez, 29, Rashid Hammou, 38, and Paul Kelly, 53, fleeced a respected family travel agency to fund their Bolivia-based company staging spectacular salsa events worldwide.

The trio and family members also took free holidays while Essex-based Flights International (Southend) Ltd foundered in the five-month plot.

The Old Bailey heard yesterday how they took over the Rayleigh firm, which they then used to issue countless tickets for flights from early 2007 - but the agency never saw a penny of the profits.

The trio secured thousands of pounds-worth of credit to fund stays at luxury hotels and bought electrical goods such as flat screen televisions.

Bolivian glamour girls were flown to European fashion shoots to help promote the Latin music tour and their company Adrian Exclusive.

But they paid the previous owners of Flights International only part of the agreed price for selling the business.

Prosecutor Jane Bickerstaffe said: "This was a case of the deliberate targeting and acquiring of a company in order to run it into the ground.

"Within a few days of the company changing ownership the office received a large number of calls and emails from Hammou and Sanchez requesting flights be booked, sometimes in excess of 100 calls a day."

One employee described the growth of the business as 20 fold' within days of the takeover - with up to 120 flights being booked in just three hours.

Staff working at the offices in Fullbridge Hill, Malden, Essex, grew suspicious of their new bosses' activities but were wined and dined and paid a month's wages in cash, the court heard.

Ms Bickerstaffe said: "In just a few months of the takeover £573,000 worth of tickets had been ordered, prior to this monthly sales would not be likely to exceed £30,000."

Once it was realised that Flight International were not meeting their financial obligations, the ticket-issuing license was stopped.

"This resulted in the company collapsing, the new owners disappearing and the staff losing their employment," the prosecutor said.

Sanchez and Hammou were locked up for five years and Kelly was jailed for three.

Outside court DS Mark Broughton of City of London Police's Economic Crime Department, said: "To some this might appear a glamorous, victimless crime with musicians and models and family members flying around the globe for concerts, fashion shoots and luxury holidays.

"The truth is the actions of Sanchez, Hammou and Kelly cost the airline industry more than a million pounds, left people out of work and destroyed the reputation of a family business built up over two generations."