Michael Higgins, a 42-year-old from Livingston, has been sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison for defrauding £18,225 from 15 victims between 2020 and 2022. The West Lothian conman used a series of elaborate lies to deceive friends, online dating partners, and even an elderly woman to fund his internet gambling addiction.
Higgins targeted a woman he met on an online dating site, convincing her to hand over £6,160 by fabricating a story about needing money to help his sister with expensive vet bills. He also duped another woman into paying £350 for an Apple iPad Pro that was never delivered, despite claiming he could get the product through his work with a finance company.
In one of his more callous scams, Higgins convinced a pensioner to transfer £6,490 to him, falsely claiming he needed the money to attend a private hospital in London for surgery. The elderly woman made 127 separate cash transactions over a two-year period.
In addition to these personal deceptions, Higgins swindled friends by promising them discounted rounds of golf at the prestigious St Andrews Old Course, asking for hundreds of pounds in advance, but never arranging the rounds. He also took £1,475 from another friend under the false pretense of funding a three-day golf holiday to Spain.
The court learned that Higgins used the money from these scams to fuel his gambling addiction. After his arrest, an investigation revealed that most of the funds he obtained from his victims were spent on gambling websites.
Higgins pled guilty to 10 charges of fraud and one charge of embezzlement. Procurator Fiscal Lynne Barrie commented on the case, highlighting how Higgins had exploited the trust of vulnerable individuals to feed his gambling habit. She emphasized that this conviction would serve as a warning to those who prey on vulnerable victims for personal gain.