A homeless man used a magic cash card to go on a £60k spending spree in Tesco, raiding branches across the north of England 167 times and even loaning the card to his friends.
Father-of-two Allah Ditta, 49, from Bradford, realised that there was a glitch with his card when a £68 transaction at Tesco went through, even though he had no money in his account.
Together with friends, the drug addict then went on a spending spree at 14 Tesco shops in Bradford, Leeds, Garforth, Oldham and Manchester.
Ditta realised something was wrong and dashed to another store in Bradford to try the same trick again.
The court heard he and his friends electrical items like phones and computers, picked up gift cards and even obtained cash back in store.
Mrs Drake said Ditta carried on spending from January 21 last year until he was arrested at a Tesco store in Bradford on February 15.
He later told cops he was not aware he had done anything wrong, adding: ‘Who wouldn’t? Who is honest these days?’
Geraldine Kelly, mitigating, said her client was going through a tough period in his life and was homeless.
He has been a drug addict for 30 years, but despite that had been married for 40 years. As it was, that drug addiction led to the breakdown of his marriage.
He was unable to see his wife and daughter and was homeless.
Ditta has a long list of previous convictions, including three in the last year for shoplifting, burglary and theft.
He admitted fraud and was jailed for two years and three months by Judge Robert Bartfield.
The judge said: ‘Through a malfunction in the software you discovered that a transaction of £68 which you were attempting to complete on your debit card in Bradford indicated to you, that for some reason, the appropriate checking facility was not working.
‘That is to say you had no funds in your account and ordinarily your transaction would have been declined because you didn’t have the grounds to pay.
‘You were not slow to see the opportunity this offered because it dawned on you that if it was going to malfunction on this occasion, it was going to malfunction again and you milked it for all it was worth.