Katie Price’s new husband Lee Andrews spent three weeks locked up in a Dubai jail for allegedly forging his ex-girlfriend’s signature to take out a £200,000 loan in her name and has been banned from leaving the country, it has been claimed.
Insiders have told the Daily Mail businessman Lee, 43, allegedly applied for a £200,000 mortgage on behalf of personal trainer partner Dina Taji without her knowledge last year.
Dina found out about Lee’s underhand tactics after receiving a phone call from the mortgage company, sparking her decision to file a legal case against him.
According to Dubai law, individuals pending criminal investigations, including unpaid debts or civil lawsuits, are not legally allowed to leave the country.
The woman reported Andrews to the authorities in Dubai who investigated her claim.
It is unknown at what stage the investigation is at – but Andrews was subject to the travel ban preventing him from leaving Dubai while the case was open.
A man who claims to have shared a jail cell with Andrews inside Dubai’s Al-Awir central prison for three weeks back in October told the Mirror he is a ‘compulsive liar’ and a ‘scammer’.
The man said his marriage to Katie is ‘just another of his scams’ and added that he hopes she ‘made him sign a pre-nup’.
Katie Price’s new husband Lee Andrews (pictured together) spent three weeks locked up in a Dubaijail for allegedly forging his ex-girlfriend’s signature to take out a £200,000 loan in her name and has been banned from leaving the country, it has been claimed
A man who claims to have shared a jail cell with Andrews inside Dubai’s Al-Awir central prison (pictured) for three weeks back in October told the Mirror he is a ‘compulsive liar’ and a ‘scammer’
The businessman dumped her before moving onto Alana Percival (pictured together), whom he proposed to four months before marrying ex-glamour model Katie
He said Andrews’ claims on LinkedIn that he is a Member of the Board of Advisors for the Labour party and the Founder of Royalton hotel chain’s Blue Diamond Resorts are ‘utterly absurd’.
A Labour source confirmed to the Mirror that Andrews had never worked with them and that they do not have a ‘Board of Advisors’.
And a spokesperson for Royalton Hotels confirmed he was not the founder of Blue Diamond Resorts, now known as Royalton Hotels & Resorts, adding their corporate records do not show him to have ever been ‘affiliated with the company in any professional capacity’.
Andrews’ alleged former cell mate said grew ‘close’ to him because they were two of only three Brits on the wing.
‘There was one large rectangular room with 10 cells inside. Each cell has 6 beds and a bathroom,’ he said.
The source said Andrews was in the same cell as him during his stay and would sleep on a mattress on the floor due to overpopulation in the block with 65 to 70 people ‘at any give time’ and only 60 bed across the 10 cells.
He also claimed the self-proclaimed billionaire was begging his fellow inmates to lend him 30,000 dirhams (£5,966) to help with his case which he said he would pay them back ‘immediately’ when he was released.
The prisoner said he told Andrews he couldn’t afford to lend him this sum, but continued to support him financially inside, giving him telephone cards, canteen items and clothing.
He said after a week inside, Andrews borrowed money from his ex-wife ‘Cez’ to cover the minimum amount required to be released.
‘At this point he expected to be released but was then told by Dubai Police that he had three further Civil Cases with outstanding determinations that he needed to resolve before he could leave,’ the source said.
Speaking on his Instagram Stories on Wednesday, Lee claimed he was set to fly to the UK to see Katie after she travelled back home to see her kids following their shock wedding
Andrews seen looking rather different in an unedited picture, compared to the heavily filtered images of himself he posts on social media
One of the many highly edited and filtered pictures Andrews has posted of him on his Instagram page
He said this was the ‘exact information’ Andrews had told him before he was released two weeks later.
The source said he ‘didn’t enjoy’ his company and found him to be a ‘compulsive liar’ who was ‘only interested in what he could benefit from other people, myself included’, adding that Andrews also got into ‘a few physical fights with other inmates’.
He said the conditions in the jail were ‘extremely poor’ and compared the treatment of prisoners to ‘mental and physical torture’.
He said Andrews was ‘big into his fitness’ and spent a lot of time working out in jail with dumbbells he had made from jail water bottles attached to a broke brush poll.
Andrews denied he had been blocked from travelling out of the UAE in a series of rambling voice notes sent to the Daily Mail, calling the idea ‘complete b******s’.
He protested he had been on numerous holidays in recent weeks – and planned to travel to the UK on Friday night to see his new wife.
Speaking on his Instagram Stories on Wednesday, Lee claimed he was set to fly to the UK to see Katie after she travelled back home to see her kids following their shock wedding.
But the entrepreneur has now performed a U-turn, revealing in a now deleted story he is ‘waiting for Katie’ to fly out and see him instead.
He said on Wednesday: ‘I’m going to be meeting Katie tomorrow in the UK. I just need to wrap up a few things here.
‘She had to get back for her children because she’s a good mother and she’s lovely like that.’
However, his planned trip to London to meet her this weekend has yet to materialise, despite him posting a picture of a plane on Friday, suggesting he was preparing to reunite with her.
In fact, he claimed he only stayed behind in the Emirati country earlier this week, while Katie went ahead to Britain, to search for a house for the two of them in Dubai to live in.
If Katie was disappointed by Andrews’ absence on Friday night, she did not show it. Instead she posted a picture of herself with her eldest son, Harvey, on Instagram captioned: ‘Curry night, chicken korma, extra cream and naan bread wooooo.’
Andrews claimed he only stayed behind in the Emirati country earlier this week, while Katie went ahead to Britain, to search for a house for the two of them in Dubai to live in
Since tying the knot with Katie last weekend days after getting engaged, Andrews has been dubbed a ‘lying swindler’ as rumours about his ‘dodgy’ past continue to swirl
And on Saturday, she posted a photograph of herself walking her cocker spaniel, Rookie.
An insider said: ‘Dina couldn’t believe Lee had made financial commitments in her name.
‘He forged her signature to take out the mortgage for AED 1million (£200,000) and she only found out when the bank called her to check some details. She had no idea about it.’
The insider added: ‘She then went legal and raised a case against Lee, which has resulted in him getting a travel ban.’
Lee dated Dina for roughly two years, during which time she set up a cat orphanage in Dubai.
The businessman dumped her before moving onto Alana Percival, whom he proposed to four months before marrying ex-glamour model Katie.
Since tying the knot with Katie last weekend days after getting engaged, Andrews has been dubbed a ‘lying swindler’ as rumours about his ‘dodgy’ past continue to swirl.
Ex Alana took to Instagram to warn Katie to ‘run for the hills’, claiming she has ‘proof’ of his shady dealings.
She wrote: ‘Women look after women. I thought it was all a lie too until I had to find out the hard way… you want proof of everything, it’s waiting for you…’ and tagged Katie in the post.
Alana also shared a photo of herself in a bikini on the beach and wrote: ‘Catching flights not fiancés ❌ Somebody with your ex right now thinking they found the one @katieprice … more to come today’s news is just a warm up..
‘You guys wanted to know what he is all about? Well let me start to tell you…#runforthehills’.
Lee connected to Alana on Facebook last March and showered her with a Louis Vuitton handbag, Cartier jewellery and transferred thousands of pounds.
He proposed in September and the set-up was identical to Katie’s engagement at the Jumeirah Burj Al Arab.
Lee appeared to have repurposed the Cartier ring he gave to Alana to propose to Katie.
Alana said as soon as she posted a picture of their engagement, she was contacted by his estranged Russian wife Cezara and two other exes, who claimed he was a ‘liar’.
Despite their warnings, Alana, who has since branded him a ‘lying swindler’, said she thought their relationships had just ended badly as she ‘never had someone basically tell me that they love me the way he does’.
Alana, who sold a house to Katie 15 years ago and called off their engagement in November, told The Sun: ‘Katie should run for the hills, Lee is a liar, a narcissist and I think he’s a manipulator.
‘Once I tried to leave him, he told me had a heart condition and was living on borrowed time. Lee doesn’t know what’s fact and what’s fiction.’
Meanwhile, another of Lee’s exes, Crystal Janke, has claimed Lee hoodwinked her into handing over £123,000 to invest in his company, on the promise he could get a ‘return of £1million’.
When approached for comment on his reported travel ban, Andrews told the Daily Mail: ‘I think there’s some wrong details in that.
‘First of all, I’ve been travelling all over Christmas, prior to January, and I’m actually travelling tonight to the UK so no, I don’t have a travel ban.
‘And the Dina Taji issue was something else, but I don’t have a mortgage either for £200,000, that’s completely not right.
‘So, I don’t know what this is with the debts and lawsuits and I’ve got good equity here. But there’s no substance.
‘I’ve got to deny everything about this because I’m going to be travelling tonight and as I said, I have been travelling, so yeah, I don’t get any of that information.’
He continued: ‘The reason I didn’t fly is because we’re actually house hunting.
‘I stayed behind to purchase and complete and that’s why I’m joining Katie now, not flying back with her.
‘She had things to do as well with her children, and I left her to it, and I was joining her last night but now it’s today I’m going to be joining her.
‘And it makes most sense for us for the weekend, OK? Alright. And it’s Heathrow I’ll be flying into, thanks.’
Andrews added: ‘My UAE bank account, details and latest statement, it far exceeds £200,000 so it makes no sense that I would owe that or be on a travel ban for it because they would take it automatically if that was the case and they hold it.
‘But that’s, excuse my French when I say it’s complete b******s, there’s no substance in it at all.’
Daily Mail has approached the Foreign Office for comment.