Dixit Shah, 49, set up over 200 companies and by the time he was arrested had 36 buy-to-let properties. He acquired the string of properties having submitted false mortgage applications, lying about incomes and stealing other people’s identities.

Shah, who used the money to fund a career in Bollywood, has now been jailed for five and a half years and at least one of accomplices, Gaurav Mathur, is still on the run.

Shah set up the estate agency, Hilton Properties, in north London, which was used to provide rental information required by lenders. The fraudster was able to set up an estate agent despite being wanted by the police and having previously been struck-off as a solicitor.

Lenders that were conned include Kensington Mortgages, which lent £238,000 in March 2007 on a property in south-east London. The property was almost £7,000 in arrears at the end of October last year.

In this application, accomplice Mathur, 38, claimed to be self-employed and have an income of between £93,000 and £95,000.

The conman claimed victims across the UK and Asia, with firms of solicitors, high street banks and foreign students all being targeted – but his links to the criminal underworld meant many were afraid to speak out against him. 

However, following a six-month investigation by the City of London Police, Shah was arrested outside a Harrow gym, after two patrol officers spotted a Jaguar linked to him nearby.