Computer geek, 17, who cost railway companies £600,000 when he set up website selling fake tickets is told to pay just £4,500 in compensation

• Jake Lazaros, now 19, was just 17 when he set up the ‘Train Bumper’ website
• Lazaros from Bexley, was caught after railway companies caught wind of ruse
• He was ordered to pay £4,500 to LNER and got a 12-month suspended sentence 

A teenage computer geek who cost railway companies an estimated £600,000 for selling fake tickets to commuters has been ordered to pay just £4,500 in compensation. 

Jake Lazaros was just 17 when he set up the ‘Train Bumper’ website, a scheme that offered fare dodgers a way to pay a fraction of the cost of their commute.

His illegal service offered a recycled QR code, taken from a £7.95 child ticket and a set of forged emails, which pretended to be from the legitimate ticket-selling website Trainline, to help buyers ‘style out’ any suspicion from inspectors. 

The website was estimated by prosecutors to have cost railway companies in London over £600,000 but accepted a basis of plea which put the losses at £50,000.

Lazaros, of Lyme Road, Bexley, was caught after railway companies caught wind of the ruse and tracked down his IP address and phone number to a domain hosted by American website hosting company BuyVM, The Old Bailey heard today. 

After an internal investigation led by LNER, the 19-year-old, who is now studying computer science at university, was arrested and admitted everything to police.

Jake Lazaros was just 17 when he set up the ‘Train Bumper’ website, a scheme that offered fare dodgers to pay a fraction of the cost of their commute. Pictured: Lazaros, now 19, pictured outside The Old Bailey today 

His illegal service offered a recycled QR code, taken from a £7.95 child ticket and a set of forged emails, which pretended to be from the legitimate ticket-selling website Trainline (stock image)

Judge Silas Reid gave Lazaros 12 months in jail, suspended for 12 months for fraud by false representation and gave no separate penalty for money laundering. 

He also ordered him to do 20 days Rehabilitation Activity Requirement and pay compensation of £4525.19p to LNER. The teenager will also pay a £34 surcharge.

Prosecutor Edmund Blackman said: ‘A plausible looking QR image was generated to use on a phone or show to a ticket inspector. 

‘At the same time a genuine-looking email was sent to the customer from ‘Trainline.com’. The train company tried to disrupt the website but when they disrupted the domain it would move somewhere else.’

The investigation linked Lazaros’s phone number and bank accounts to the online activity, and investigators were able to show his IP address and phone number were used to pay the US domain hosting company.

Jake Lazaros, now 19, pictured outside court today

In his plea, Lazaros only admitted to profiting around £4,500 from the scheme, but Judge Reid said the loss ‘must be vastly more’.

Defence barrister Emma Stuart said she would not dispute a figure of £50,000 loss after rejecting the need for a separate hearing on the matter. 

Ms Stuart said: ‘He was only 18 at the time of his interview when he made full admissions.’ 

She said he was now studying at university, selling trainers on the side, and giving his family £300 a month while caring for his aunt.

Judge Reid told Lazaros: ‘You are clearly a talented computer scientist. At the moment you are applying that at university, in the period of offending you were applying it in the wrong direction by utilising it for serious criminal activity.

‘This was a very sophisticated offence. Multiple websites used, spoofed emails and so on. It was carried out over a long time.’

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