An aircraft engineer who stole £180,000 of camera gear and falsely claimed it had gone missing on a British Airways flight must pay back £21,000 – or face another year in jail.
Miguel Kakaie, 45, hired the cinema-grade recording equipment for £7,000 from rental firm Take 2 before travelling to Istanbul in April 2013.
When he arrived, he claimed his bags never appeared on the luggage carousel and complained to the Turkish authorities.
Kakaie successfully claimed £10,000 for the loss of his own personal camera equipment and insurer Zurich ended up paying out £250,000 to Take 2.
But X-rays of his luggage at Heathrow Airport revealed his bags were empty before they were loaded on to the plane.
Kakaie was jailed for two years in May after he was convicted of theft and two counts of fraud at the Old Bailey.
He was not in court yesterday when Judge Mark Lucraft QC ordered him to pay back some of his criminal cash.
The judge said the total benefit figure was £258,585, but added Kakaie’s realisable assets from his share in a property and a pension fund amounted to £21,121.
Kakaie had claimed he hired the camera gear to promote his talent video website iammuchbetter.com, which boasts it “allows people to watch and share and compete in talent videos all around the world”.
In April 2013 he travelled to London from his family home in Aberdeen to collect the hired equipment before checking in four bags and boarding the flight at Heathrow.
Prosecutor Simon Connolly said: “In fact, he simply booked on a number of empty boxes and bags, got rid of those boxes and bags in Turkey and tried to pretend the cameras had all been lost in the bags.
“The reality is he had a plan to make these false claims to steal this equipment and that he had to pack something to make them think there was something missing.”
Jailing Kakaie last year, Judge Paul Worsley QC told him: “Early in 2013 you hit on a way to make money using your knowledge of airports and the way in which luggage can go missing.
“You decided you could make a lot of money by hiring valuable photography equipment. You were an amateur camera man but you decided to hire equipment worth £180,000.
“I am satisfied that the luggage you sent off was empty cases.”
Kakaie, of King Street, Aberdeen, denied theft and two charges of fraud, but was convicted after a trial.
He now has three months to pay the £21,000 or face another year in prison.