Salford Red Devils captain Elijah Taylor opens up on the horror of being swindled out of $400,000

Elijah Taylor has made it as a professional rugby league player.

At 32 years of age, the loose-forward has played almost 200 NRL games for New Zealand Warriors, Penrith Panthers and Wests Tigers.

Ahead of the 2021 Super League season, Taylor made the move to the Salford Red Devils where he has thoroughly impressed in his time at the club so far.

However, the Kiwi’s time in the game has been far from straightforward as he explained how he was swindled out of just over £200,000 by a former manager, Ian Miles, who had taken out almost 1000 transactions from Taylor’s bank account.

“I knew him at 16 years old at New Zealand Warriors,” Taylor told the Out Of Your League podcast.

“From 2007 all the way up to 2016, we built a really strong relationship – I text and called him every day.

“If I didn’t make the international team or got dropped from NRL, I’d ring him up crying.

“A lot of people don’t understand the context of the relationship and why I allowed him access to my bank accounts.”

Taylor went on to reveal how his first thought was to focus on his rugby league and trust Miles with the rest.

“I moved to Penrith and we had a joint account just to help me save and to give me financial advice and just help me make correct financial decisions because I came from a background where we lived cheque to cheque.

“I got a budget of $4,000 a month and I was happy with that. I decided to pay my rent, get my food and play my footy. It’s probably the first time discipline has actually cost me because I’m not a punter and I hardly went out with the boys.

“I focused on playing footy the best I could. I got my $4,000 and the rest was for mortgages and investments and I didn’t look at that.”

But, Taylor’s world soon came crashing down after making a trip to the bank after being contacted by the company he had taken out a mortgage with.

“In 2016, I got a letter from the people we had a mortgage with and they said I’m behind on my payments.

“I went to the bank and you know those days in your life that you’ll never forget, that’s the day I’ll never forget – I saw the transactions going into his account and his holidays.

“Personally, I was in disbelief – I didn’t believe it.

“I saw transactions for like $20,000 and I saw the total figure and I was just like ‘wow’.

“I cut access to the cards and his online banking and I haven’t heard from him since.”