A father-of-two who conned a woman he matched on internet dating site, Tinder of £140,000 was described as “profoundly dishonest” and jailed for four-and-half years.

Richard Dexter, 38, of Hampshire convinced his victim Amrita Sebastian he was a successful businessman on the verge of a “big windfall” when they matched on the dating app.

As part of his lies, which included boasting he was worth £6.8 million, owned private jets and a hot air balloon, the dad-of-two said multinational companies were interested in signing a multimillion-pound deal with him as he held the patents to biopharmaceutical technology.

Based on the multimillionaire profile of her match, Sebastian, an Indian national based in Dubai, handed over a number of payments worth £141,000 between 2015 and 2017 for investment in a lucrative biopharmaceutical technology deal.

They agreed he would repay the money by April 2017 but he stopped replying to messages and when no money arrived she went to police.

Dexter pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud and not guilty to one count of possessing an article used in fraud and to one count of perverting the course of justice.

After a raid on Dexter’s Hampshire home, police found a fake document which claimed he had more than £4 million invested with the financial services company Hargreaves Lansdown.