A woman who fled the country to avoid serving a two and a half year prison sentence has been ordered to pay £170,000 – or serve another two years in jail.
Andrea Davison of Felinheli, Gwynedd was convicted of fraud back in 2012 following the discovery of what was described as a false document factory at her home.
She denied the offences claiming that she worked for security services and that the false documents were to provide false identifications for herself because people were trying to kill her.
But she disappeared before her trial and was said to have gone to an embassy in Ecuador to seek political asylum.
She was convicted in her absence and the jail sentence was passed.
Today, Judge Niclas Parry, sitting at Mold Crown Court, decided that her criminal benefit from the enterprise was £173,785.
He ordered that money should be paid under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) within six months or he ruled she would have to serve an additional two year consecutive sentence.
The POCA financial hearing was conducted in her absence.
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An earlier application for her to be allowed to appear at the hearing via a live television link from Argentina where she is now said to be living was refused by the judge.
In his judgment today, Judge Parry said that he found that the bank accounts which were subject to the POCA application by the regional asset recovery team had been set up using false identities, supported by false documentation, arising out of the false document factory discovered by police at her home.
At her trial in 2012, the prosecution said she was running a false document factory after she kept items from a mail drop service, including passports, as templates to recreate documents.
She was convicted unanimously of 26 charges by a jury at Mold Crown Court, who found her not guilty of one charge at the direction of the judge.
Judge Niclas Parry said Davison had made it clear at the start that she was not attending her trial, and information provided to the court indicated she was at an embassy in Ecuador seeking political asylum.
Davison had, he said, been convicted on overwhelming evidence of serious offences of fraud and dishonesty over many years.
Judge Parry said he was satisfied that she was a highly intelligent woman who used information she fraudulently obtained to repeatedly create false identification documents for the purpose of obtaining, potentially, many thousands of pounds worth of credit. It had left people devastated.
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“The potential for loss was quite enormous,” he said.
The court heard how Derby Police economic crime unit raided Davison’s Felinheli home after documents uncovered in another fraud case were found to have come from her.
Davison, 62, of Bangor Street, Felinheli, admitted much of what was alleged.
But she said she provided herself with false or virtual identification because she was trying to protect herself.
People had been trying to kill her because of her previous covert work for the security services, she claimed in police interviews.
Davison confirmed she had credit or bank accounts in other names but said they were all paid up.
She spoke of providing virtual realities for other people and told how she ran an organisation called The Association for Former British Intelligence Officers.
Davison denied possessing copies of passports in connection with fraud, making a false Venezuelan passport, offering to supply false ID documents, possessing false utility bills and bank statements and falsifying the register of electors.
She also denied possessing false documents including four stamps purporting to be of official origin including one for the Republic of Panama, possessing a false driving licence in her name with a false date of birth, theft of the passport from the Passport Service, exposing banks and credit card companies to risk of fraud, money laundering, and a trademark offence centred on five watches alleged to have been Breitling watches.