THE man dubbed the ‘Catch Me If You Can’ fraudster today insisted he is nothing like the character portrayed by Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio.
Dundee-born Reece Scobie, 22, was sentenced to 16 months in prison in 2013 after duping travel agents out of more than £70,000 to fly around the world to glamorous locations such as Dubai, New York and Singapore.
On the way, he booked himself into top hotels, which led to the comparison with Frank Abagnale Jnr — portrayed by DiCaprio in blockbuster Catch Me If You Can.
Yesterday, we revealed how Scobie, originally of Rait, Perthshire, was sentenced to another 12 months in prison after being convicted of a similar fraud and possessing child pornography.
Due to serving roughly seven months in custody since last year, he was freed to return home last Monday from Iceland, where he was caught.
Today, Scobie, who has Asperger Syndrome, spoke for the first time about his crimes and insisted he was determined to change his ways, after realising the hurt he had caused to those he stole money from.
He said: “I don’t know why I did it. I have a huge interest in planes and travel, but it’s nothing like Catch Me If You Can.
“It was just the thrill of being on the flight. I pretty much just got off a plane and then went on another one.
“When booking them, it was just something I did and then I didn’t even remember I’d done it.
“I never thought of the consequences at the time of people losing their money but it was afterwards I wished I hadn’t done it. I never did it purposefully or to cause harm.
“I want to stop doing it. I’m done with seeing the inside of police stations and prisons — I can’t deal with it anymore.”
Scobie is now set to see a psychiatrist to try and prevent him from re-offending. He believes medication he was given while in Iceland helped his condition and hopes doctors here will prescribe him the same tablets.
He went on to defend his position over his conviction of possessing 4,750 photographs and 345 videos of child porn. He said his condition made him fascinated with the “dark internet” after watching a documentary on Silk Road, which is an online black market.
Scobie said: “I’m not a paedophile at all. I was following a story about a guy in America on the dark web. It’s something I’m really interested in — it’s all about computers and the trade of illegal arms and things on the internet.
“I came across this site, an internet forum, and decided to have a look at what was on it. There’s a few links that I downloaded and once I realised what they were I tried to delete them.
“I contacted the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and reported them to the Internet Watch Foundation.
“I thought I had deleted them, but the police found remnants of them.”