Fraudster who changed gender twice caught hiding out as football club goalkeeper

A convicted fraudster wanted on an arrest warrant was caught after the president of a women’s football club – where the fugitive had been playing as a goalkeeper for eight months despite legally identifying as male – became suspicious.

The convict – a former police officer – had legally changed their gender twice over the years and used these various identities to help carry out crimes, reports broadcaster Polsat. At one stage they rented a property using a male identity while running it as a manager using a female one.

The individual in question, now aged 55, has been known under the male name Andrzej and female name Joanna, but only the first initial of their various surnames can be given under Polish privacy law.

In the early 2000s they were known as Andrzej D. and worked as a police officer in the city of Wrocław. Then in 2006, Andrzej D. changed his officially recognised gender to female and became known as Joanna P., reports news website Trójmiasto.pl.

This change of gender involved being issued with a new national identity number, known as a PESEL, and a new identity card. Joanna P. was supposed to return her old card – associated with Andrzej D. – to the authorities but claimed she had lost it.

Joanna P. set up a law firm, despite not having a law degree (or any university education at all). But she was taken to court by an employee who found out she had not been paying health insurance contributions. That resulted in Joanna P. being convicted and fined in 2010.

Meanwhile, Andrzej D. – who was no longer supposed to exist – also set up a law firm, supposedly based in London. That company then made money by offering to help victims of the Amber Gold scandal, Poland’s biggest-ever pyramid scheme. However, in reality it took their money and did nothing to help them.

In 2013, Joanna P. underwent a second legal change of gender, becoming known again as Andrzej but this time with the double-barrelled surnamed D.-C. That meant he received a third PESEL and ID card, again failing to return his old one, reports Polsat.

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In this guise, Andrzej ran several foundations, even receiving an award for helping children. However, he also ran into further legal trouble, resulting in a conviction and 2.5-year prison sentence for crimes including extorting money from a bank and violating workers’ rights while running a historical palace.

At the time, the palace, located in the city of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, was officially rented by Andrzej D.-C. but managed by Joanna P. – who were, in fact, the same person.

“When there were inspections or creditors [came], and there were plenty of them, Joanna would come out and say that she didn’t know anything, that she had to talk to Andrzej, because he was in charge here,” a former employee, Iwona Marczak, told Polsat.

Andrzej D.-C. went on the run, and in September last year an arrest warrant was issued for him after a final conviction was handed down. Eventually, in February this year, he was apprehended after a tip-off from Mateusz Bieszke, the president of women’s football club Checz Gdynia.

Bieszke revealed that a woman, Joanna R., who reportedly had experience playing as a goalkeeper in higher divisions, joined the club as a player and also helped with administration and worked pro bono as the team manager.

“She helped out at the club, trained as a third[-choice] goalkeeper, but I started to have some suspicions,” Bieszke told Trójmiasto.pl. “She said she was a lawyer, but once it slipped out that she was actually a financier and ran a foundation. After further conversations, I decided that it didn’t make sense anymore.”

Speaking to Polsat, Bieszke said that the final straw was when he “got a call from Joanna’s number from a man who introduced himself as Andrzej”.

Andrzej D.-C., identifying as Joanna P., in a team photo from September last year (eyes masked under Polish privacy law)

After investigating her online, Bieszke realised who Joanna P. really was and alerted the authorities. Although presenting as a woman, Joanna P. has been placed in isolation in a male prison because legally her current identity is as a man, Andrzej D.-C.

Andrzej D.-C. is also facing a number of other legal cases. He is accused of running multiple fraudulent schemes over the years, including a service that offered disinfection services during the pandemic but then failed to provide them.

“This is certainly not the end. His sentence will ultimately be longer,” Aleksandra Freus from the municipal police headquarters in Wrocław told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) earlier this year.

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.