Katie Price's husband Lee Andrews has been accused of attempting to scam his wife's fans from behind bars with the help of an accomplice.
Background of the Allegations
After tying the knot just days into their relationship in January, Dubai-based Lee vanished from Katie's life on May 13 – standing her up live on Good Morning Britain, where they were booked to do a joint live TV interview. A baffled Katie later told the world he had been kidnapped and tied up in a van. Eventually, the pair were put in touch by his dad, with Lee claiming he had been arrested on suspicion of espionage, before it emerged he had actually been detained at the notorious Al Awir central prison for alleged fraud.
Last week, Katie flew back to the UAE again in an attempt to straighten things out on her husband's behalf, but it's been reported it will cost £140,000 to secure his freedom.
The Alleged Scam
While Lee sits in prison, a member of the public claims he was targeted by his account and a man saying he was his business manager, who attempted to convince him to invest £5,000.
‘I messaged Andrews' Facebook account as a joke and said I had money to invest on May 20. I was stunned when I got a response on June 3. The person claimed to be Lee's business manager and asked me to send my number,’ a man identified as David told The Sun, sharing his correspondence with the publication.
Two days later, David says he received a message from a British number on WhatsApp, advertising Lee's dissolved business Aura, complete with a photograph and message from Lee at the top. The message was reportedly from a man called Robert Davis and read: ‘CEO Lee Andrews send me your WhatsApp number…because you're interested in our company investment.’
Responding ‘to see how far they would take it’, David says Robert, in an effort to prove his identity as Lee's associate, ‘even sent me a dodgy image which was clearly AI’ of ‘a little bald man in an office’. ‘When he sent me the picture, he wrote: “I have not done this to any of our clients, but I'm doing this for you because I respect my boss Andrews.” The whole thing was laughable,’ added David, who says he's convinced the image is AI because Robert said he was sending it in real time – but the computer in the background gave a different time on the screen.
When he continued with the suggestion he'd be investing, David's instructions were then reportedly to send his money using a direct bank transfer as ‘the company's accounts were still being set up’. David then says he was sent the sort code and account number of a man called ‘Rayan Hashmi’, and when he queried the fact it was a different name and not a business account, he kept being ‘fobbed off’. He also claims Robert said he could send the money via Western Union instead, transferring it ‘to a woman called Ethel who lives in Mississippi’.
David also asked outright, he says, if Lee was in prison, with messages sent back from Robert claiming he wasn't in jail and adding: ‘My boss Andrews has misunderstanding with him wife Katie, that's why people think he's in jail, he's not.’ He later blocked ‘Robert’ after he was sent further pushy messages about his money when he started ignoring the conversation.
Insider Knowledge
An insider with knowledge of Lee's alleged past schemes told The Sun they believed he worked with an associate ‘to try and legitimise what he was doing’, deliberately taking calls where you could ‘hear him talking business to another male who seemed to be in on the whole thing’. ‘It was his way of pulling you in because he would have these conversations about multi-million-pound business deals. It all sounded so legitimate at the time, but clearly so much was a sham,’ they continued, adding they would not be ‘shocked’ if Lee was now using this man to try and gather further ‘investments’ while he's in jail.
The Sun reports that, when it contacted the number to speak to David, the associate identified himself this time as ‘Robert David’, denying ‘in broken English’ once more that Lee was in jail and insisting ‘we don't scam anyone here’.
Katie Price's Response
Katie has recently said that Lee will be released from prison ‘within days’ – thought to be early next week – and that she ‘cannot wait’ to be reunited with him. She also insisted that she's never given him any money during their relationship.
In a surprise turn of events while in Dubai, Katie met up with Lee's ex, personal trainer Dina Taji, who had a ‘warning’ for her after he allegedly forged her signature to take out a £200k mortgage in her name. Upon being reported to the authorities, Lee was arrested and spent time behind bars last autumn. After he was released, he was slapped with the travel ban he long denied having… which Katie has now confirmed he does.
Katie has since revealed to The Sun that meeting with Dina ‘opened her eyes’, having spent six hours examining the evidence she has, admitting she ‘needs some time to think’. ‘I still cannot end things with Lee until I've spoken to him, but that was a lot,’ she added. However, upon her return to the UK she shared a defiant snap of her engagement and wedding bands firmly in place – after being photographed without as she touched down at Gatwick airport – and insisted she still loved her husband.
Previous Allegations Against Lee Andrews
- Misleading claims of being a multi-millionaire business owner: When Katie named Lee as her new partner, he was selling himself as the CEO of Aura Group Future Urban Travel 2027 and an ‘investor in SpaceX Hybrid Fitness’. His profile, which had 111k followers, was littered with photos of the entrepreneur in the gym and enjoying the high life in Dubai – also appearing to rub shoulders with Elon Musk and Kim Kardashian. However, it was all later exposed as a farce – with no information about his company on its website, and his snaps with celebrities appearing to also be AI-generated.
- Being banned from leaving Dubai: After meeting and marrying her new husband in Dubai, it came time for Katie to fly home to the UK – however her husband was unable to join her. This was due to the fact that he'd allegedly served time in Dubai's Al Awir central prison for suspected fraud, for allegedly taking out a £200,000 mortgage in his ex-girlfriend's name without her knowledge. The UAE bans people facing criminal investigations from leaving the country, however Lee denied he was unable to return to the UK and said there must be some ‘wrong details’. However, Katie later confirmed he was subjected to a ban, but didn't clarify why.
- Teasing a fake pregnancy: Just a few weeks into their relationship, both Katie and Lee teased they were expecting a baby. After Katie declared she was 'having his child' Lee wrote they were a ‘perfect couple soon to be triple’. At one point, the mum of five even urged her followers to pay £2.99 to find out the results of a pregnancy test. Despite the attempts to generate publicity, she then confirmed she was not pregnant.
- Scamming a string of women: Days after Katie and Lee tied the knot, two of his exes accused him of being a 'liar, narcissist and manipulator'. Two months later, it was then reported he'd been begging women for money weeks before he married Katie. His ex Alana, then shared a post on Instagram calling him the ‘Tinder Swindler’ and claimed multiple women had contacted her saying he'd tried to scam them out of money too.
- 'Ghosting' his wife: After Lee failed to return to the UK last week, Katie revealed she had concerns he'd been kidnapped and then reported him as a missing person. However, it was then reported that Lee had actually ‘ghosted’ his wife and was ‘squatting in a slightly run-down villa’ in Dubai and using a burner phone. The Sun claimed he was ‘frantically planning a route out of this ginormous hole he appears to have buried himself in’.
Metro has attempted to contact a representative for Lee Andrews for comment.
