A CIRENCESTER nightclub has been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after a so-called Premier League Footballer turned out to be a con artist.

Reva Nightclub’s VIP area has been extremely popular since the Bishop’s Walk venue opened in December last year.

Yet the club has recently been the victim of several con artists, who ordered more than £3,500 worth of alcohol on fake credit cards.

“We regularly have celebrities spending up to £400 at Reva buying bottles of frozen vodka and champagne,” said Dan. “So when we had a footballer's agent phone up wishing to pre-order £1,000 of drinks we were naturally excited.”

Yet, unknown to the Reva staff at the time, the ‘footballer’ and his crew were all con artists. They visited the nightclub on seven occasions, partying with expensive drinks they had pre-ordered over the phone with fake credit cards.

“They were very convincing, they even turned up in a chauffeur driven car,” added Dan. “They’re definitely not local and they probably won’t come back.

“The police were all ready to do a bust-up when they were going to come back but we haven't seen them.”

Cirencester police officers are currently investigating the issue and are in the process of identifying members of the public whose cards have been used fraudulently.

Officers are also trying to find the owners of the mobile phones used to make the calls.

In its place before was The Rock, but when manager Dan Lafford saw the space come up for sale he snapped it up to create brand new nightclub Reva. He also is director of wine bar Seventeen Black on Castle Street.

Anyone with information is urged to call 101 quoting incident number 107 of June 17.

Meridian Leisure and Entertainment, the company which owns Reva nightclub and Seventeen Black wine bar, have had the payments reclaimed by the card companies.