Hunt for cheat who preys on travellers

Officers suspect 41-year-old Neil Rodgers has duped people at airports and railways into falling for his hard luck tales for around the past two years.

His most recent crime took place at Gatwick Airport in West Sussex in May when he posed as a respectable businessman having just returned from Dubai.

He obtained 100 from an unsuspecting member of the public, made his excuses and left, a spokesman for Sussex Police said.

Detectives in London, Surrey, Edinburgh, Thames Valley and the British Transport Police (BTP) also want to quiz him over similar offences.

Sussex Police said his favourite method was to ensure he was overheard apparently talking to someone on his mobile phone about how he cannot get home to York or elsewhere because his credit cards have been cancelled and he cannot obtain a ticket.

He then starts a polite conversation with a traveller either who is sitting next to him or is standing outside having a cigarette, police said.

The unsuspecting victim then becomes involved in a further conversation and offers to lend him some money, typically between 50 and 100.

The conman promises to repay them and provides a mobile phone number, and sometimes even texts an address to the victim. But the money is never repaid and when the victim tries to contact him, there is never any reply.

Rodgers also uses other names including Sean Wells, Neil Roberts and Daniel Thomas, and speaks with a North-East accent.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: "He is believed to be from the Middlesbrough area and his sob stories are very convincing."