THE leader of a major international fraud gang was claiming Pandemic Unemployment Payments (PUP) from the State despite being locked up in jail awaiting his court outcome, the Herald can reveal. Daniel Almajanu (35) was jailed for four years and four months on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to two counts of having custody of 53 fake bank cards and one count of making 65 fake bank cards at various locations around Dublin between January 1 and February 13 last year. The Romanian national also pleaded guilty to one count of possessing a laptop designed to make false cards. Gardaí said this week that data found on that laptop showed that he could have made up to €5m from his cloned credit card scam.