Doncaster Love Island star swindled out of thousands by catfisher posing as Premier League ace

Doncaster dating show favourite Georgia Steel was taken in after meeting former Derby player Medi Abalimba in a London nightclub.

He posed as a Premier League ace – but was in fact, a £300-a-week non-league player and part-time taxi driver - and by the time Georgia met him, he had already served a four-year prison sentence for fraud.

Now she is set to tell her story in a new ITVX show, Cons And Swindles: The Football Fraudster, exposing Abalimba, this Thursday.

It was in April 2019, when she discovered that the handsome, seemingly successful man she’d been dating was, in fact, a conman.

A six-week romance ended in the devastating revelation that US government agent Miguel Johnson was actually Medi Abalimba, an ex-footballer who’d turned to crime when his sporting career ended.

Journalists recognised Abalimba from paparazzi photos of the couple and the pictures were published online, prompting Georgia’s manager to call her with the awful truth.

She’d been duped into dating a swindler who, unbeknown to her, had spent around £32,000 on her credit cards.

“It was a complete shock. I didn’t know who this person I’d let into my life was or what he was capable of,” Georgia told The Sun.

‘I didn’t realise then, but I was vulnerable… He exploited that.”

Tall, handsome and wearing designer clothes, “Miguel’’ had approached Georgia in early 2019 in Reign nightclub in London’s West End.

Using a smooth American accent, he showered her with compliments, and told her he was an ex-serviceman who worked with the US government in a security-sensitive role that he wasn’t allowed to talk about. Georgia was intrigued, and when she told him who she was, he said he’d never heard of Love Island.

“I liked that,” she says. “I didn’t want to be with someone who was with me because they’d seen me on TV.”

Over the following six weeks, they went on dates to swanky clubs and restaurants. Sometimes they were taken in his chauffeur-driven Range Rover. He even met Georgia’s family.

Georgia believes she was targeted by Abalimba and that he knew who she was when he approached her, skilfully manipulating her in order to gain her trust.

“He was looking for targets. I was 20 and living alone in London, as my family were in Doncaster,” Georgia says. “I didn’t realise then, but I was vulnerable. I was getting lots of attention and was away from the people I trusted. He exploited that.”

Abalimba, 34, was born in Congo and moved to the UK aged five. He was brought up in London and fell in with the wrong crowd as a youngster, but had the chance to turn his life around when his potential as a footballer was spotted.

At the peak of his career in 2009, he signed for Derby County for £1.2m. He also played for Oldham Athletic, Southend United, Fulham and Crystal Palace.

By 2012, he was signed by Farnborough Town with a wage of £300 a week, and was supplementing his income with part-time work at a taxi firm.

But his taste for the high life lived by his more successful footballer peers drove him to a life of crime. By 2014, he was breaking into lockers at a private health club he was a member of in London, taking photos of credit cards, then using the details to fund a playboy lifestyle.

He posed as Chelsea footballer Gael Kakuta and swanned around in luxury bars and hotels, running up huge tabs, which he either didn’t pay, got someone else to pay or settled with stolen credit cards.

He racked up almost £15,000 worth of bills at luxury spots including the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park, Corinthia Hotel in Whitehall and Millennium Hotel Knightsbridge.

He also took four girls from Manchester on an £1,100 helicopter flight over London, before having them stay with him at an £800-a-night mansion in Berkshire, which he claimed was his, then duped another woman into spending thousands on her credit card to rent him a Range Rover.

He was finally caught when he paid for more than £11,000 worth of clothes at Selfridges in Manchester using several credit cards.

When he sent a limousine driver to the shop the next day to collect the goods, a store detective became suspicious and called the police.

A security guard prevented Abalimba’s driver from leaving, then the police became involved and tracked Abalimba down to a mansion in Ascot, Berkshire, which he’d rented in the name of Kakuta.

Abalimba was jailed for four years in October 2014, admitting three charges of fraud, taking a Range Rover without consent and making off without paying for £104 worth of petrol, while other offences were also taken into consideration.

Police said that with no assets or cash to his name, there was no opportunity for financial compensation to be paid to victims or for the estimated £163,000 he’d spent to be recovered.

But even in jail, Abalimba sought out victims. In 2016, while serving his sentence in HMP Moorland, he exploited a vulnerable 50-year-old agency nurse working in the prison, enticing her into a relationship.

She smuggled a phone in for him, and when the relationship was discovered, she was jailed for 20 months for misconduct in a public office and conveying a mobile phone into prison.

Sheffield Crown Court was told the divorced mum of two had been taken in by a “confidence trickster” who targeted her because she had low self-esteem.

Anna Rowe is the founder of website Catchthecatfish.com and co-founder of romance fraud think tank Love Said. “Abalimba is a narcissist and is using the skills he’s learned to groom victims. These people catfishers know how to manipulate,” she explains.

“Research shows there are correlations between coercive control and the techniques that scammers like Abalimba are using. It is the same behaviour. Some people think coercive control is about feeling threatened by violence, but it comes in many guises.”

Abalimba was released from jail in 2018 and the following year met his next victim, Georgia.

“I didn’t think he was a thief or a predator – he looked like he had money – and we exchanged phone numbers,” she says.

Their six-week relationship was never intimate, and whenever Georgia asked him about his life and work he changed the subject. “He was adamant he couldn’t be photographed with me, and he said his job was the reason he didn’t have social media,” she says.

Abalimba went to Georgia’s 21st birthday party in March 2019, where he met her family. “He fooled everyone,” she says. “My dad felt he’d let me down when it all came out – that he should have known. But Abalimba was so convincing.”

The day Georgia discovered Abalimba’s true identity, she confronted him. “He came to my apartment and tried to deny it,” she says. “Eventually, he left. That was the last time I saw him.”

However, when Georgia checked her accounts, to her horror, around £32,000 had been spent. She believes Abalimba had copied the details of her cards, which he then used. She called the police.

“They knew who he was and told me he’d been in jail for similar offences and that he’d conned a string of women,” she says.

In September 2019, Abalimba was arrested for fraud at Kadie’s Club in London’s Mayfair and was sent back to prison in October 2019.

After being released, he was jailed again in March 2020 for using Georgia’s card to pay for restaurants and designer clothes. Georgia did not attend the trial.

Georgia hopes that by sharing her story, she can help prevent other people being exploited.

“The documentary was difficult to do, as it opened wounds.

It’s not something I wanted to dwell on, but I want to raise awareness of these types of people,” she says.

“They know what buttons to push. I would say to anyone in this situation that it’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.”

As for Abalimba, Georgia doubts another spell inside will make him change his ways.

“He’ll keep doing it,” she says. “It’s all he knows. He’ll be working on his next plan.”

Watch Cons And Swindles: The Football Fraudster, Thursday, ITVX.