A Pakistani student living in the Black Country who overstayed his visa to visit this country and allowed his bank account details to be used in a £53,500 fiddle, has been jailed and told he will be deported.

Anees Ahmed, of Walsall, was sentenced to 16 months. He will be sent back to his home country at the end of his sentence.

Ahmed, of Spout Lane, Caldmore, was arrested when the racket he was involved in was uncovered. But he skipped bail and avoided justice for four years.

He was found hiding in Scotland, Wolverhampton Crown Court  was told.

The 32-year-old opened six bank accounts after arriving in this country in October 2003 for a business studies course at a college in London.

But his student visa was scrapped after the Home Office was told he had not attended any classes for 10 months, explained prosecutor Christopher O’Gorman.

By then Ahmed had given the cheque books and guarantee cards for his bank accounts to a man he allegedly met in Luton. He knew they would be used in a scam and was promised half the money made through it.

In April 2005 two men, one in Glasgow and the other in Cheshire, answered illegal emails asking for their bank details and had more than £18,000 withdrawn from their accounts and transferred into those of Ahmed who then paid off a £9,855 credit card debt, said Mr O’Gorman.

Almost 250 cheques drawn on the accounts of Ahmed — all for slightly less that the £100 maximum of the card used to guarantee them — were cashed between May and November 2005, the court heard.

Ahmed was interviewed when the scam was uncovered but vanished after being released on bail at the end of January 2006.

Mr O’Gorman continued: “He was traced to Edinburgh and arrested on September 5 this year.”

Ahmed pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud banks on the basis that he gave all his banking documents to a man knowing that they would be used in fraud.

He denied sending the e-mails and said that he didn’t write or sign any of the cheques used in the racket.

Ahmed said he “may” have written and signed the cheque that paid off his credit card, the court heard.