A champion Poodle has become a rather unlikely victim of identity theft. The dog, named Blue has had his vital pedigree information pilfered from a website by a fraudster who is now using the impressive stats and figures to hike up the price of his own dogs.

The con man was only caught on when he tried to claim that the pedigree Poodle, who’s pedigree name is Afonwen Welch Fusilier, had had a litter of puppies. The only problem being that the dog is male.

The genuine puppies can be valued up to £1,000, but the ones being passed off by the fraudster were not guaranteed to be from good healthy stock. The con man, who had also stolen the address of a Glasgow graveyard to avoid detection, was only caught out when a vigilant dog buyer sensed something was wrong.

A West London woman became suspicious after telephoning the trickster and being told she’d need to pay cash upfront. She Googled the name and managed to locate the real owner of the dog.

Lynne Day, the actual owner, told The Mirror newspaper

“Anybody buying a dog on the internet needs to be aware of this. Some will send cash up front. The thing that upsets me most is that a crime was committed in my name.”

Do incidents like this compromise your trust in the pedigree system?