A CLYDEBANK man has been ordered to do unpaid work for trying to convert thousands of pounds obtained by fraud.

Craig McCallum, of Dumbarton Road, previously pleaded guilty to converting criminal property of £3900.40 into Euros after a charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The 33-year-old returned to Dumbarton Sheriff Court on January 9 for sentencing, more than three years after the crime took place.

Fiscal depute Mandy Robertson told the court that on August 7, 2020, business PVH Holdings were contacted by a man who claimed to be from the "HSBC fraud team".

He told the company there was fraudulent activity detected and accounts would be frozen. Checks were carried out and initially appeared to show the call was legitimate, but later turned out to be part of the fraudulent scheme.

A template had been set up which would have caused a financial loss of £264,000 from two business accounts.

Payments were made however to 18 accounts through 26 payments, heard the court.

Two of those went to McCallum, totalling £20,000 split evenly across two accounts.

He then went to H&T Pawnbroker in Sylvania Way on August 7 and converted £3900.40 into 4170 Euros.

Police started investigating and made various attempts to trace the accused.

Defence solicitor Judith Reid said her client pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and had paid back £16,000. He was only charged over the nearly £4000 he converted.

She said: "He is at the tail end of a chain of fraud. He succumbed to a scheme to make easy money.

"He was on drugs and it seemed like a way to make easy money. At the time, he was in a very bad place.

"The case is almost three years old and he has not come to the attention of authorities in that time."

Sheriff James Spy said there was no potential focus for social work supervision so imposed 220 hours of unpaid work in the community. It must be completed within a year.