A smooth-talking bank manager who stole GBP 500,000 from a British customer after saying they needed to sign a blank cheque has been caught after 20 years – when he went to cash his pension.

Cops have been hunting former manager Elbeyi Alemdag, 61, since he gave 39 of his customers blank checks to sign, allowing him to withdraw GBP 500,000 from the account of the female British client and USD 4.5 million from the other 38 victims.

Alemdag was the manager of a bank in Turkey, and the thefts that started taking place in 2001, were only discovered in 2003 when the British customer raised the alarm with him.

When the victim, identified as Dondu Demircivi, insisted on having the money, he vanished.

The whole scam was exposed when the British client contacted police to complain that the money had disappeared from her account.

They then discovered that numerous other customers had also been robbed, and an arrest warrant was issued, but by then he had vanished.

The crook then changed his appearance and avoided detection by meeting and living with various women he met on social media over the years, and constantly reinventing his look and his name.

But the greedy thief was caught when he became eligible for a pension, and started withdrawing it when it was paid automatically into his bank account.

When police were alerted, they staged a trap, and when he tried to use his bank card, they swooped, and he was arrested on 6th January.

Police said he was arrested after he tried to use an ATM machine in the Buyukcekmece branch of the same bank in Istanbul where he used to work.