A self-styled fundraising boss has been jailed after being found guilty of ripping off a series of high profile charities to the tune of nearly £100,000.

Bogus do-gooder Richard Beya Kombe claimed he was an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo who was raising cash for a charity he ran.

His charity - the British Francophone Migrant Community Development - was officially registered by Charity Commission.

But Canterbury Crown Court heard it was just a front to get funding and Kombe was in fact a Belgian benefit cheat who defrauded charities like Children in Need and Comic Relief.

Police said the fake fundraiser also used an alias to commit serious, sophisticated and sustained breaches of trust across the UK, Europe and Africa.

Kombe's criminal associates included close family members who committed a range of crimes including facilitation, identity fraud, document fraud and passport forgery.

The fraudster, from Bristol, was caught after a long-running investigation by Kent Police’s specialist Frontier Operations Joint Investigation Team.

He was handed four and half years in jail on each count to be served concurrently.

Members of his Kombe’s family have also been jailed abroad and investigations are continuing by overseas law enforcement authorities.

Frontier Operations Detective Chief Inspector Darren Mullins, who oversaw the inquiry, said: "This is a satisfying end to what has been an immensely complex investigation involving lies, deceit and betrayal that flourished due to a combination of Kombe’s brash confidence and a lack of proper controls within the organisations he ripped off.

"Kombe is a calculating and ruthless criminal. He hid behind a black African group in order to prey on the goodwill and good faith of organisations that sought to raise funds to help the vulnerable.

"He used weaknesses in their audit processes to fraudulently obtain large sums of money.

"He exploited them to fund a comfortable lifestyle. In addition, he put his own family at risk by involving them in his criminal career."

Officers found in 2004 the Charity Commission, which regulates registered charities, officially adopted the constitution of the British Francophone Migrant Community Development.

This gave the BFMCD a false credibility that paved the way for Kombe to apply for large scale funding.

On August 2005 the Charity Commission also formally registered the BFMCD Trustees.

Enquiries showed that the personal details submitted to the Charity Commission regarding the Trustees were either false, inaccurate or misleading.

The Joint Investigation Team identified that the BFMCD received £272,599.88 between March 2004 and October 2008 and funds into the BFMCD charity were quickly diverted to other accounts.

Kombe entered the UK in 2003 and claimed asylum under the alias Buanga Beya, saying he’d fled the DRC fearing persecution. However the claim was bogus as he was a Belgian citizen.

On sentencing, Judge James O’Mahony, said: "These bodies and people who work within them mean well and they want to help those who need help.

"You cynically exploited that public feeling and confidence. You ripped off £90,000 of public money.

"You devoted yourself to making funding applications to get as much money as you could, almost as a full time job. It was utterly hypocritical.

"You have called decent honest people salary seekers and bureaucrats yet I find your only real interest was not for those who needed help but lining your own pockets.

"We don’t know yet where the money went. When you were staying in the Congo you lived the high life.

"You considered yourself a big man treating yourself to splendid hotel accommodation for yourself and your family.

"This was a serious exploitation of public good will and money. It involved the undermining of confidence in these public bodies.

"You cynically used other people including your own family in the fraud and you use other people’s identities.

"You may even have deceived yourself into the perception you are a world wide humanitarian figure.

"But in the context of the evidence in this case you have been exposed as a confidence trickster on a substantial scale."