Hunt for bogus spy ‘on run with heartbroken love’s £850,000 savings’
BRITAIN’S most wanted conman, who reportedly fleeced a woman of her life savings while posing as an MI6 agent, is on the run with his wife and two daughters, police revealed yesterday.
Mark Acklom, 44, allegedly took £850,000 from divorcee Carolyn Woods after promising to marry her.
Police now believe he may be hiding in plain sight in Spain and have released details about his family in a bid to capture him.
Last spotted in Switzerland in May, officers think Acklom is with his wife, Maria Yolanda Ros Rodriguez, 47, and their two daughters, aged six and eight.
Acklom’s wife, who uses aliases including Yolianda Ross, Maria Long and Mary Moss, may be working as a yoga teacher.
Both Acklom and his wife have previously set up property businesses and police believe their daughters may be attending a fee-paying school. The Avon and Somerset force is appealing to British expats in Spain who have children in private schools, who may have noticed the recent arrival of a new family.
Last year a European Arrest Warrant was issued for Acklom and he was believed to be at large in Spain, having been released from a Spanish prison over a £200,000 property fraud.
Detective Inspector Adam Bunting said: “Mark Acklom is a convincing fraudster and we’re working hard to locate him as soon as possible.
“We believe he’ll be with his wife, Maria Rodriguez, and their two young daughters, who we know, up until last year’s appeal, were enrolled in El Limonar International School in the Murcia area of Spain.
“In the days following the appeal he removed his children from the school and, together with his wife, he disappeared.”
Acklom is said to have left Ms Woods financially and emotionally devastated after their year-long romance in Bath, Somerset, in 2012.
She alleged that the former public schoolboy posed as an MI6 agent and conned her into “lending” him her savings. He then vanished.
In 1991, Acklom, then aged 16, received a four-year custodial sentence for a £466,000 mortgage fraud after he posed as a City stockbroker.
He also spent £11,000 after stealing his father’s credit card, swindled a former teacher out of £13,000 and ran up a £34,000 bill with a private charter jet company.
He is described as 5ft 10in, of medium build, with dark brown hair and green eyes.