Brit conman on the run in Spain after ‘posing as MI6 agent and Swiss banker to seduce divorcee and swindle £850,000 out of her’
The schoolboy fraudster managed to convince her he was a special agent and promised to marry her
A DIVORCEE told last night how a conman who pretended to be an MI6 agent fleeced her of £850,000 before going on the run in Spain.
Carolyn Woods said she and Mark Acklom talked about marrying before she finally saw through him.
He fled and was jailed in Spain for a £200,000 property scam. But by the time British police got a European arrest warrant he had vanished again.
The story of ex-public schoolboy Acklom — who committed a £1million fraud aged 16 — echoes the Leonardo DiCaprio film Catch Me If You Can, about a fleet-footed career trickster who poses as an airline pilot and doctor.
But for Carolyn, 55, the anguish of being duped is only too real. She said: “I was devastated. He left me destitute and destroyed my life.
“We talked of marriage. I’ve still got the wedding dress I never wore. It was all a charade. At the time I actually wished he had killed me.”
Acklom, 43, said he was a Swiss banker called Mark Conway when he first walked into a boutique where she worked in the posh Cotswolds town of Tetbury, Gloucs.
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He wanted a jacket and said he was in the UK to buy an airfield, as well as doing charity work with the Prince’s Trust and Clifton College public school in Bristol.
Carolyn recalled: “He was flirtatious, charming and entertaining. He has presence and charisma and exudes confidence. The air around him was electric. I was caught up in a whirlwind of excitement.”
Within days they had moved in together in Bath. She then overheard him discussing a money problem.
She said: “I had just sold my house and I offered him a loan of £26,000. In the end I lent him everything I had.”
Carolyn went on: “One of the most extraordinary things he told me was that it was all a cover and he was an MI6 agent. It sounds far-fetched, but he convinced me it was true.
“We were in London once when he said he’d been called in, so we drove to the MI6 building. I watched him walk down into a car park past two armed policemen.
“There are no photographs of us together because he said his handlers would not allow it. I became frightened.
“He was isolating me. He got me to leave my job, move in with him and by the time I had given up my independence I was a prisoner.”
Carolyn only later discovered his past, in which he is believed to have used a string of pseudonyms including Marc Ros Rodriguez, George Kennedy, Zac Moss, Marc Saunders, Marco Rossi and Marc Ross.
Carolyn, who says her two daughters believe he brainwashed her during their year-long relationship, claims she found he had been living a double life with a wife and two young children. But there is no record of anyone called Acklom or Mark Conway living in the area.
Carolyn went to police in July 2013. Acklom did a runner and was jailed for three years in Spain for duping two brothers.
Carolyn said: “He wrote to me promising in one letter, ‘I will never run away again. I only have one last chance. If I mess up I know it ends’.
“In March he called me to say he was free, but then vanished again.” Questions are now being asked about the time it took police to issue the arrest warrant.
A source said: “They were waiting for the Spanish to carry out inquiries, which was their priority, but for some reason he has been allowed to get away.”
A police spokesman said they were now working with Spanish officers to track down Acklom.
Hollywood hit Catch Me If You Can told of US jet-set trickster Frank Abagnale. Aged 15, he stole $3,000 from his father’s credit card before travelling the world while forging company cheques.
In 1969 the 21-year-old was caught in Montpellier, France, with the help of an FBI officer, played in the 2002 film by Tom Hanks.
HIS RAP SHEET
- £1m fraud at 16... sentenced to 4 years youth detention
- Used string of false names: Marc Ros Rodriguez, Zac Moss, George Kennedy, Marc Saunders, Marco Rossi and Marco Ross
- Jailed 3 years for a £200k property scam in Spain
- Pretended to be an MI6 spy
- Said he was a Swiss banker
- Conned his lover out of £850k
- Now on the run
Read about more cons:
A career conman who swindled a doctor and her mother out of more than a quarter of a million pounds has been sentenced to almost a decade behind bars. Christopher Heayns had just been released from prison when he met his victim, setting out to drain her of more than £250,000 to fund his desired lavish lifestyle.
A conman made up to £100,000 selling washing powder to drug users who thought it was cocaine. Jamie Lee Taylor got £1,000 a day flogging bags of the bogus Class A drug to party-goers and addicts at £20 a time.
A Romanian conman who was kicked out of Britain after fitting card skimming devices on cash machines was caught doing it again after returning to the UK illegally.Varga Viotel Vasile, was sent back home last December after completing his 16 month-jail sentence.
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