A Penge fraudster who cost TfL around one million pounds in lost revenue by selling child Oyster cards to over 18s has been jailed.

Shaquille Moore, 27, of Trenholme Road, sold 16+ Zip Oyster photocards through social media under the alias ‘Ben Franklin.’

To be eligible for a 16+ Zip Oyster, which offer half price adult fares across TfL services and, in some instances, free travel, a person must be 16 or 17.

Moore offered his customers the service of falsifying documents with fake dates of births to create Oyster accounts online.

This included the production of fake identification documents to enable his them to complete the proof of age step of the Oyster verification process.

On August 24 and September 11 2018, a TfL fraud investigator received two separate e-mails from TfL employees reporting suspected fraudulent activities relating to Oyster cards on social media.

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Upon TfL prosecuting fraudulent cardholders, a number of them wrote to TfL to explain how and where they purchased the Oyster photocards.

It was found that the money for the photocards was being sent to bank accounts in Shaquille Moore’s name.

After a successful investigation by the British Transport Police (BTP), with the support of TfL, Moore was located, arrested and charged with fraud by false representation.

He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison at London Crown Court on August 28 where he pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation.

BTP Detective Constable, Mark Pink, said: “This was a pre-planned, sophisticated fraud that continued for a prolonged period of time. Moore made over £35,000 from his criminality and his activity resulted in significant revenue loss for TfL.

“We've worked closely with TfL to bring Moore to justice and the sentence passed down to him today shows that this type of criminality will not be tolerated.”

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Richard Mullings, TfL’s Head of Counter-Fraud and Corruption, said: “Fare evasion and fraud deprives the capital’s public transport system of millions of pounds of investment - money that should have been used to improve the buses, Tubes and roads for everyone.

"This latest conviction shows that we take a zero tolerance approach to anyone defrauding Londoners.

"We will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who fraudulently offers for sale Oyster cards to customers who are not eligible for our discounts, and those who purchase them to deliberately avoid paying for their travel.”