Dressed in a tailor-made go well with and travelling solely by chauffeur-driven limousines, Alick Kapikanya seemed each inch the profitable businessman.
He lived in mansions in among the most exclusives postcodes in leafy Cheshire, stayed in suites at five-star motels and loved a life many people might solely dream of.
But beneath the glitz and glamour is just not the story of a self-made man or go-getting entrepreneur.
Kapikanya is in truth a fraudster who spun an internet of lies stretching again many years, racking up 11 convictions together with theft.
And regardless of 5 deportation orders, the conman dodged being kicked out of Britain for an astonishing 27 years.
But his crimes, which included stealing aged victims’ properties in an elaborate £3.5million mortgage rip-off, have lastly caught up with him because the Appeal Court definitively dominated on the finish of final month that he be deported.
After 42 years within the UK, Kapikanya is to be despatched again to his native Zambia.
Now, as he stands defeated, the Daily Mail can reveal the luxurious addresses at which he had lived whereas splashing his ill-gotten beneficial properties.
The properties vary from a riverside mansion in a fascinating Cheshire city favoured by celebrities and footballers, to high-end flats in prosperous suburbs in Manchester.
Deportation: Alick Kapikanya, who lived the excessive life after being a part of a gang who stole identities to fraudulently take possession of their properties, remortgage them and pocket the money
Pictured: A riverside mansion in an unique a part of leafy Cheshire owned by conman Kapikanya between 2006 and 2007
Kapikanya, who modified his identify to Alex May by deed ballot, was lately registered as residing at a flat within the luxurious Chapel House within the suburb of Didsbury
Among his property portfolio was a gated mansion he owned between 2006 and 2007, on the sought-after Mereside Road, in Cheshire, the place properties common £2.3million.
Known as the realm’s millionaires’ row, it lies within the fascinating Knutsford city which varieties a part of Cheshire’s ‘Golden Triangle’.
The space is fashionable amongst footballers and celebrities, and is dwelling to the likes of England stars Jordan Pickford and John Stones.
The spectacular mansion is protected by tall gates and backs on to The Mere river.
When the Daily Mail visited the tackle, a neighbour who stated she remembered Kapikanya commented, ‘Not a bit shocked to be trustworthy. And lots extra like him round right here.’
Meanwhile, in 2021, Kapikanya was registered as having lived at a luxurious flat at Chapel House, within the unique St James Park space, near the luxurious suburb of Didsbury in Manchester.
The conman modified his identify to Alex May by deed ballot after getting back from jail, and had the identical Didsbury residence registered as an organization tackle below this identify between 2023 and 2025.
Residents on the flats advised of how he had appeared ‘regular’.
One neighbour stated: ‘He lived right here just a few years in the past. I bear in mind him coming and going.
‘He appeared very regular, nothing out of the odd.’
But this was removed from the case. Kapikanya’s flamboyant life-style was not contained to only his fancy residences.
He used the cash, pocketed from conducting id theft and remortgaging victims’ properties, on lavish stays at West End motels and playing classes at The Ritz Hotel Casino in Mayfair, and would journey solely by limousine.
And regardless of his convictions, he was a high-flying member of society.
He would meet up with councillors to debate the regeneration of Grimsby, and was in talks to take over Notts County FC and turn into a majority shareholder in Grimsby Town FC, although they finally fell by way of and led to the resignation of a deputy council chief.
Pictured: The Ritz Hotel, in Mayfair. Kapikanya is claimed to have gambled away 1000’s of kilos of his ill-gotten beneficial properties within the Ritz Club on line casino within the resort’s basement
The 57-year-old convicted fraudster is known to have beforehand lived at this tackle in Stretford, Manchester. It vastly differs from the lavish properties he was beforehand in
The 57-year-old first arrived within the UK aged 14 to be adopted, however was reportedly ‘assimilated into a non secular cult’ when it fell by way of. Not lengthy after, he fell into a lifetime of crime.
He was first warned he might be faraway from Britain in 1992 after he was convicted of his first crime – tried fraud and theft.
Then in 1996 he was convicted of two offences of theft and was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment. He was additionally convicted of theft of a motorized vehicle and sentenced to a consecutive time period of 15 months’ imprisonment.
It was following this, in 1998, that Kapikanya was first notified he was ‘liable to deportation’ due to his offending. In March 2000, after serving his sentence, he misplaced an attraction towards deportation, however no order to take away him from the nation was made.
The conman was then additional convicted of dishonesty in 2008 and once more notified of his legal responsibility to deportation. In February 2010, discover of a call to deport him was served.
On 12 March 2013, then Home Secretary Theresa May decided to deport him however he efficiently appealed and was granted go away to stay till 15 April 2016.
Undeterred, he then picked up from the place he left off and launched contemporary scams.
In 2014, Kapikanya and a property fraudster nicknamed ‘Mr Fastcash’ had been discovered responsible of getting led a housing crime gang who stole luxurious properties throughout the nation and illegally used them to acquire loans.
The gang labored by stealing aged individuals’s identities to take possession of properties, remortgage them and pocket the money.
A complete of ten properties had been focused within the £3.5m rip-off.
Four had been focused in Worsley, Greater Manchester, one every within the villages of Hale and Malpas, Cheshire, and three properties owned by a pair in Sleaford, Lincolnshire.
Kapikanya had helped to recruit the group of conmen together with a crooked conveyancing agent to amass the title deeds of homes then use faux passports, driving licences and utility payments to pose as the actual householders.
The gang would go to solicitors’ workplaces all through Britain utilizing the faux paperwork to signal over the properties to property tycoon ‘Mr Fastcash’ – actual identify Marshall Joseph – so he might take out loans with numerous monetary establishments and safe mortgages towards the ‘stolen’ properties.
The victims, the true homeowners of the ten properties concerned, knew nothing concerning the unlawful loans secured on their properties till police uncovered the rip-off after the gang defaulted on secured mortgage repayments.
The group, who had efficiently gained £3.5m from their fraud and had been about to acquire an addition £3.3m, had been jailed in 2014 after the case was heard at Manchester Crown Court. Kapikanya sentenced to 6 years.
The offences had been dedicated between 2007 and 2008.
It was the eleventh time Kapikanya had been convicted of a criminal offense on this nation.
At the time of his arrest, he’s understood to have lived at an tackle on Chatsworth Road, Stretford, Manchester. The semi-detached dwelling is on the extra modest facet of his property portfolio.
When the Daily Mail visited this tackle, a neighbour stated: ‘Yes I bear in mind him. I used to see him and coming and going. He would let on the odd time.
‘Just very regular. No flash vehicles or something.
‘I’m shocked to listen to concerning the fraud.’
Kapikanya had been residing at this Cheshire mansion between 2006 and 2007. The offences he was convicted for in 2014 had been in relation to offences dedicated in 2007 and 2008
Kapikanya’s gang stole the identities of aged individuals in Manchester, Cheshire and Lincolnshire
But whereas his victims’ lives had been turned the wrong way up, having to battle to reclaim authorized possession of their very own homes, Kapikanya, had been splashing the ‘stolen’ money on a luxurious life-style.
This included playing away £170,000 in a single night time.
He owed £100,000 for the rent of luxurious vehicles, and organized for the switch of £60,000 right into a on line casino account he held on the Ritz. He used the cash to pocket £82,000 on the roulette wheels solely to gamble away £8,000 later.
Yet one other deportation order was made on 3 February 2016 following the 2014 convictions – however he challenged it by way of the Court of Appeal and his case was returned to a First-Tier Tribunal (FTT).
It took one other seven years, till January 2023, for the case to be heard on the FTT – 25 years after he was first notified of his legal responsibility to deportation – and Kapikanya was allowed to stay primarily based on the ‘unduly harsh and very compelling’ impression on his son, who was 17 on the time.
He was additionally heard to have had a spouse he had married within the time after the 2016 deportation choice.
During this time between the 2016 order and the attraction being heard within the FTT, the conman, who had modified his identify to Alex May, tried to dealer a deal to takeover Notts County FC, appearing as an ‘advisor’, nevertheless the bid collapsed.
He was then later additionally uncovered for having hyperlinks with the ex-deputy chief of North East Lincolnshire and Grimsby Town FC majority shareholder John Fenty.
Grimsby Live pictured Kapikanya, or May, sitting with Grimsby Town administrators throughout a League Two sport towards Mansfield.
The convicted fraudster was additionally discovered to have arrange an organization with Mr Fenty, with the revelations prompting the deputy council chief to resign from his place.
Following the FTT choice, the Home Office took the case to the Upper Tier tribunal in April 2023 and efficiently challenged the choice, main Kapikanya to go to the Court of Appeal.
And on the Court of Appeal ruling late final month, the fraudster was lastly ordered to be deported by Appeal Court judges Lord Justice Bean, Lord Justice Peter Jackson and Lord Justice Baker.
They wrote: ‘[Kapikanya] has been the subject of five decisions that he should be deported over a period of a quarter of a century.
‘The system of appeals and orders for reconsideration has served him well in enabling him to remain in the UK throughout that period.’
In the newest listening to, the Appeal Court heard he got here to the UK in April 1983, aged 14, to be adopted. The adoption fell by way of and, the courtroom heard, Kapikanya was ‘assimilated into a non secular cult’.
Now married with a 20-year-old son, at an earlier attraction listening to Kapikanya argued he was in remission from abdomen most cancers and was affected by anxiousness. He was described as being ‘socially and culturally built-in into the United Kingdom’ with ‘no familial or social hyperlinks with Zambia’.
Barrister Zane Malik KC argued deportation could be ‘unduly harsh’ on Kapikanya’s son. Mr Malik added ‘over and above’ that the very fact Kapikanya has lived within the UK for 42 years additionally constituted ‘very compelling circumstances’.
But the panel of judges stated Home Secretary Yvette Cooper ‘should now, at last, be allowed to put the November 2016 deportation order into effect.’
Describing the impression of the property fraud on the time Kapikanya was sentenced, Ben Southam, senior crown prosecutor, stated: ‘The mortgages and loans were obtained against houses they did not own, and without the knowledge of the real homeowners.’
The true homeowners ‘knew nothing concerning the loans’ and had been induced ‘considerable distress and inconvenience’, he added.