Plymouth's worst fraudsters have come in all shapes and sizes - from the heartless Casanova to the cowboy car trader.
Some people will stop at nothing to get on other people's cash, so they can go on a luxury holiday or fund their gambling addiction.
From sophisticated company frauds to simple lies on a form, fraudsters have all walked away with tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Here is our round-up of some of the most shameless swindlers to face a judge in Plymouth.
Casanova conman left a trail of broken hearts
Casanova conman Michael Brain left a string of empty bank accounts and broken hearts across the country as he defrauded a string of girlfriends.
He told his victims, including one 75-year-old, he was an ex-Royal Marine sergeant major waiting for a war wound payout.
Brain, then aged 47, was jailed for four years in September 2016 at Plymouth Crown Court
He admitted 14 fraud and theft charges involving £40,000 against 28 victims – the oldest was a 75-year-old woman who lost £20,000.
He cheated lovers he met on sites such as Plenty of Fish.
Between 2012 and 2015, up to 28 women handed over £40,000 which he spent on bills, cigarettes, booze and gambling.
He also got hold of their PINs and plundered their accounts.
Brain, from Plymouth was earlier jailed for 70 weeks in January for stealing £3,000 from lovers with fake cheques
Brain has been given a lifetime ban from dating sites under an Anti-Social Behaviour Order.
Princess Yachts trio milked more than £1 million from company
Building bosses colluded to milk about £1miillion from Princess Yachts in Plymouth.
Company managers Glyn Thompson and Roger Truen hooked up with contractor Darren Tallon to run a series of complex frauds against the luxury boatmaker.
Ringleader Thompson was jailed for six years and hid deputy Truen was imprisoned for three years and four months after a huge trial at Plymouth Crown Court in 2016.
Former Argyle player Tallon was locked up for four and a half years.
Thompson was said to have made £636,945 over about three years of defrauding his employers - some of that jointly with his co-defendants.
But he splashed out most of it on rented cars and homes and only has assets worth just over £8,000, Plymouth Crown Court heard.
His deputy Truen, aged 51, was found to have joint benefitted by £617,051 but his assets only amounted to £147,998.
Princess Yachts was overcharged and billed for a series of works which never took place, the trial heard.
Cowboy car trader repeatedly ripped off customers
Cowboy car trader Steven Courage repeatedly ripped off customers to line his own pockets.
But he managed to avoid going to jail - and won't have to pay back a single penny to his victims.
Courage, of Courage Car Sales, 'ran roughshod' over customers of modest means who trusted him with their lives and cash.
In return, the 48-year-old conman sold them faulty vehicles - even failing to hand one customer thousands from the sale of his vehicle.
The St Budeaux dad-of-four was handed a 15-month suspended prison term for six counts of fraud last year.
"You were prepared to lie and manipulate and have done so with pride," Judge James Townsend said at Plymouth Crown Court.
"You are the kind of man who is prepared to say anything to achieve your own aims," he added.
But Courage won't serve any of his jail term if he doesn't commit a crime over the next two years.
And Courage - lambasted for being 'abhorrently dishonest', a liar and a manipulator - was told he won't have to pay any compensation to his victims after his defence pleaded he had no meaningful way of coughing up the £8,925 being sought.
Courage lied to other buyers about major problems with the cars sold by Courage Car Sales, leaving some thousands of pounds out of pocket.
One customer who bought a Vauxhall Signum found that someone had tampered with the coolant sensor to mask a leak.
The buyer, who handed over £2,000 for the car in January, gave up getting it repaired or his getting a refund, and so sold it for scrap two months later.
Other customers claimed he was aggressive or evasive – and one said he tore up a refund cheque in his face.
Courage, of Colebrook Road, St Budeaux, spent a week on trial after he denied seven counts of fraud in 2013 and 2014.
The jury found him guilty by unanimous verdicts on six counts and acquitted him on the other after five hours of deliberations.
Courage, who told the jury he had no mechanical knowledge, sat with his head in his hands after the forewoman announced their verdicts.
Prosecutors Plymouth City Council said Courage had defrauded customers out of £11,298.
Housing officer tricked social landlord out of £120,000 to fund gambling addiction
A housing officer with a gambling addiction has been jailed for conning Plymouth Community Homes out of £120,000.
Trusted Paul Benwell, aged 36, faked payments for former tenants over three years but frittered the money away on his habit, a court heard.
Police found there was only 74p left in his account once his fraud had been uncovered.
PCH’s chief executive John Clark told Plymouth Crown Court in a statement that Benwell had betrayed his colleagues and the tenants.
But he said the housing association would honour any genuine payments due to residents – which had instead been diverted to Benwell’s account.
Jailing Benwell for two years and four months last July, Judge James Townsend said: “This was a planned deliberate activity and not a moment of madness.
“Over more than three years you systematically stole money, about £120,000, from Plymouth Community Homes, an organisation dedicated to providing accommodation to people who desperately need it.
“You abused your trusted position to steal money desperately needed elsewhere.”
Smartly-dressed Benwell, of Winchester Gardens in Whitleigh, had earlier pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position between from 2014 until January last year.
Tracey Baker, for Benwell, said “He felt a certain amount of relief such was the spiral of offending over a period of time. He provided details of all the bank accounts. They were all held in his name”.
Mrs Baker said he had taken steps since his arrest to tackle his gambling addiction and he also had some mental health difficulties.
She added: “He will seek the help he needs upon his release and will continue to have the support of his family.”
The solicitor added that the offence was “totally alien” to his family, as he was of previous good character.
Lying alcoholic swindled £43,000 in benefits and splashed out on dream holiday
An alcoholic who swindled £43,000 in benefits splashed out on a holiday to Thailand and Singapore, a court heard.
Lying Lorraine Deadman, aged 62, then told investigators that she thought she had “got away with it”.
Deadman failed to disclose her husband had moved back in while pocketing two types of benefit for more than three years.
She also did not mention an £18,000 inheritance a few months before the long-haul break, Plymouth Crown Court heard.
A judge said that it was “quite a bad case of its type.”
Handing her a suspended jail term, Recorder Jonathan Barnes added: “I would have been justified in sending you to prison but you have significant health problems, you are of good character and for some reason Colin Deadman has not been prosecuted in these matters.”
Prosecutors say her husband sold his house without telling the authorities and hid the fact he was living with her.
Lorraine Deadman, of Hobart Street, Stonehouse, pleaded guilty to two counts of dishonestly failing to inform the Department for Work and Pensions and Plymouth City Council of a change of circumstances affecting her claims.
She admitted failing to promptly notify them she was living with Colin Deadman between November 2013 and March last year.
She claimed housing benefit and employment support allowance in the sum of £43,253.
Deadman was handed a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, with 20 days of intensive probation supervision in August last year.
She was given a three-month curfew for seven days a week between 6am and 6pm.
Disgraced doctors and son set up a string of bogus businesses
A disgraced doctor and his son must do unpaid work after setting up a string of bogus businesses in a £50,000 VAT fraud.
Struck-off Dr David Waghorn , aged 55, and his 27-year-old son James Waghorn, created eight businesses to falsely claim back VAT on books, medical supplies and clothes they said they had sold.
But in reality, no sales ever took place and an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) discovered they used the money to fund their lifestyle, including dining out in restaurants.
It was the latest legal defeat for the cosmetic surgeon, who was struck off in 2013 for performing illegal procedures.
James Waghorn was found guilty of four counts, with the total fraud for both men adding up to nearly £50,000.
Waghorn junior chose not to give evidence but his father delivered a long and rambling speech from the witness stand.
Representing himself, he spent more time promoting his pioneering method of dealing with cancer and fat cells than addressing the single count.
The court also heard that Dr Waghorn gave HMRC investigators an American-style caution after he was arrested. He told them that “anything they said could be used in court”. It was one of the strangest trials heard at Plymouth Crown Court last year.
David Waghorn was sentenced to a 12-month community order and was ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work.
James Waghorn was sentenced to a 12-month community order and must carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.
Judge James Townsend told James Waghorn “no doubt you had determined that you would get away with it”.
Latest cases heard by Plymouth Crown Court
The 'Shrek' love rat who fleeced lonely women
A love rat conman from Plymouth was locked up again in December 2017 - after changing his name to trick a new string of women while on the run from police.
Lying lothario Peter Berry - a world record holding yachtsman - even got married using a false name while he spent two years on the run from police.
Berry is thought to have conned millions of pounds from victims all over the world over the course of 20 years.
The former dockyard worker and "professional liar" seduces lonely women on dating websites and charms his way into their bank accounts.
But after a whirlwind romance he disappears without a trace, using his love-struck victims' cash to fund his millionaire's lifestyle.
Berry was first unmasked by Plymouth Live and our sister print title The Herald as a cruel fraudster over eight years ago.
He was locked up for five years in 2010 after his lies finally caught up with him - but was back swindling single women as soon as he got out of jail on licence.
He changed his name and left of trail of broken hearts as he evaded capture - even tying the know - until he was spotted by someone who recognised him from a BBC Crimewatch appeal.
At the end of 2017, then 51-year-old former Saltash Community College and Callington Community College pupil Berry, who grew up in Callington, has been jailed once more - this time for eight years.
He was found guilty at Inner London Crown Court on Thursday of conning three women out of £68,000.
A jury convicted the "serial thief" of seven counts of fraud by misrepresentation dating back to 2012, all of which he had denied during a four-day trial.
Cops speaking outside the court said Berry - dubbed Britain's biggest love rat - had "a perverse skill" in seducing vulnerable women with cash to spare.
