LONDON, UK – A man in the United Kingdom who posed as a friend of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a pilot with a multimillion-dollar trust fund, and a cruise ship captain has been unmasked as a con artist who has defrauded millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims over several decades. Jody Francis Oliver, 45, is currently serving time in prison on charges of fraud and theft after allegedly leading seven different lives and defrauding people of approximately $5.6 million.
Oliver’s fraudulent activities reportedly began after he left high school and worked as a special constable for the Dyfed-Powys police department in Wales. He lost his job after forging a letter to the chief constable, claiming to be a senior officer who praised Oliver’s work as an officer and stated he had won a policing award.
In 2002, Oliver married his school teacher wife and established a driving school. He eventually connected with British Rally Champion driver Colin McRae, claiming to have secured him a sponsorship deal with Coca-Cola. He also reportedly told another young driver he had secured him a sponsorship deal worth over $400,000 with Ryanair, asserting he was friends with the Irish airline’s CEO. Both deals turned out to be fictitious.
Oliver was caught by police for forging documents for the fake sponsorships and sentenced to community service in 2004. However, his fraudulent activities only escalated from there. In 2009, he founded gambling slot machine companies, claiming to colleagues he was friends with Boris Johnson. He dressed in expensive clothing and drove high-end cars like Range Rovers. By 2010, bank records showed he was thousands of dollars in debt and had developed a gambling addiction.
Oliver reportedly began spending more time away from his family during these years, claiming he was the co-owner of a funeral home and had to work “death duty” on certain weekends. In reality, Oliver was allegedly spending his weekends under the pseudonym “Jonathan Kane” in the Welsh town of Tredegar, where he reportedly told people he was a police officer who had a wealthy boyfriend.
By 2011, Oliver was using the name “Jonathan Flynn Oliver” and began dating a 19-year-old, Rhys Burgess, whom he met on a gay dating app. Oliver claimed to his boyfriend that he was the “director of events” at Jaguar Land Rover and the couple eventually moved in together. Oliver was still married to his wife, who believed her husband was spending his weekends working at the funeral home.
In 2018, his gambling debts began piling up to the tune of roughly $160,000 and he needed more money. He told his fiance that he got a job as a cruise ship captain and another false identity was born. Oliver reportedly hung around a Welsh bar wearing a captain’s uniform and going by the name of “Captain Jonathan.” He would offer discount cruise tickets to those in the pub, promising people that taxis would collect them the day of departure. But no taxis ever arrived and Oliver was reported to police in January 2019. He was accused of defrauding just under $400,000 from 21 victims, many of whom were elderly and retired.
Oliver was sentenced in August 2022 to six years and one month for the cruise ticket scams. In May of this year, Oliver pleaded guilty to another 17 charges of fraud and theft regarding his time as a car salesman, as well as for lying to his father-in-law in order to obtain $130,000. Out of the estimated $5.6 million he stole from people, he pocketed roughly $1.5 million. The court seized all of his assets in May, which totaled £351, or about $434. Many of his victims have not recovered their losses in Oliver’s scams.