Baby-faced conman who sold the world’s richest tourists down the river

He posed as a wealthy aristocrat — but was really a 22-year-old ex-grammar school boy from a Birmingham semi who fleeced an elite band of travellers . . .

THREE years ago, 60 passengers boarded a small cruise ship called the Ortelius in the port of Tierra del Fuego, an Argentinian archipelago.

The port is located in Ushuaia, the southernmost city on the planet. Nicknamed ‘the end of the world’, Ushuaia is arduous to reach, with freezing gales and high seas that turn the stomach of even the most experienced sailor.

But then this trip, which was to take in Bouvet Island, a tiny uninhabited landmass between Antarctica and the bottom tip of South Africa, was not for your regular holidaymaker. The passengers — mostly wealthy, middle-aged men — were ‘extreme travellers’ whose life’s mission is to visit all 193 UN-recognised countries. No place is too remote, dangerous or expensive.

The 29-day journey across the South Atlantic ocean on the Ortelius did not come cheap, costing £9,000 for a small, shared cabin.

But there was one passenger who stood out from all others. Not only did he have his own cabin, which cost around £20,000, he was years younger than anyone else on board.

Quiet, unassuming and impeccably dressed in tailored chinos, a white safari hat and jacket, he introduced himself as 22-year-old William Baekeland, a British aristocrat and great-grandson of Leo Hendrik Baekeland, the Belgian-born inventor of Bakelite — the precursor to modern plastic.

Rumours of this young man’s vast inherited wealth and grand heritage were soon rife, and he was quickly welcomed into the fold.

His fellow travellers were so impressed by his status, encyclopaedic geographical knowledge and cut-glass accent it is claimed that they soon began to hand over huge sums of money for private expeditions William promised to organise.

Little did they know the young man was not who he claimed to be. They now say that they have been left badly out of pocket.

In an extraordinary tale of deception, William was not a multi-millionaire British aristocrat, but a former grammar school pupil from the West Midlands called Jesse Gordon. Instead of the homes he claimed to have across the world, including in London and Ireland, he in fact lived with his parents in a £130,000 ex-council house next to a Mecca Bingo hall in the Birmingham suburb of Great Barr.

UNTIL

a few months ago, he managed to keep up this pretence and allegedly convinced dozens to hand over money for expeditions, some of which, to be fair, came to fruition and were declared great successes. But a great many more did not. Now he stands accused of taking £524,000 from 19 people for trips that failed to materialise.

Although British police are investigating, few of his victims think they’ll see their money again. Today, there is a lot of anger and embarrassment among this community as to how the wool was pulled over their eyes. So how could this young man, without fame, fortune or ancestry, seemingly manage to hoodwink so many wealthy and experienced travellers into giving him so much money? And how could he keep up the ruse for so long?

William, who is now 25, was born Jesse Gordon in Sutton Coldfield in 1993, the eldest of three children (he has two younger sisters, Jasmine, 22, and Grace, 19) of parents Simon Gordon, 62, a railway engineer and Mandy, 53, a housewife.

Although his upbringing was relatively modest, he was an exceptionally bright child and obtained a place at King Edward VI grammar school. Family holidays rarely went beyond Dorset, but from an early age he had a passion for geography and would study maps for hours.

Childhood friend Joshua Radcliffe, 25, says: ‘ He always wanted to see the world. It was an obsession with him.’

But it was not until he finished his degree in international politics and economics at Aberystwyth University in 2014 that William — who officially changed his name from Jesse to William Baekeland in the same year — began to travel seriously.

Using a small inheritance from his grandparents, he bought a ticket on the Ortelius and set sail in March 2015, just days after celebrating his 22nd birthday. This was his debut into the community of extreme travellers, who he beguiled with tales of how he could pilot planes and of the 100-plus countries he claimed to have visited already.

And as they made the long journey together across icy waters, William revealed his plans for future expeditions, including a circumnavigation of Antarctica. He depicted himself as a travel fixer, an explorer who could coordinate trips to the most far-flung and inhospitable places, with no expense spared for chartered yachts and security teams.

Dominique Laurent, 67, a retired French financier and oil executive who has travelled to more than 170 countries, was a fellow passenger on this trip. He took in every word. ‘He looked like quite a wealthy guy although he was very young,’ he recalls. ‘I was very impressed by his knowledge.’

Another passenger was BritishGreek travel writer Harry Mitsidis, 46, one of only a handful of explorers to have visited every country in the world. By coincidence — and probably to William’s horror — the pair’s paths had crossed in 2013 when William, while still at university, had applied for an internship on Mr Mitsidis’s website. He was using the name Simon Baekeland.

ALTHOUGH

they’d they never met in person — the work was carried out remotely — subsequent checks by Harry into the intern’s CV revealed he had lied about his education, claiming to have attended the £ 17,000- a- year Harrodian school in London.

He also said he had studied in North Korea for a month, as well as at exclusive international schools in Switzerland and Monaco. Needless to say, Harry ended William’s internship and did not hear from him again until he spotted him on the Ortelius.

He says initially William went out of his way to avoid him, but with so much time together on-board (only 24 hours of the trip were ashore) they ended up talking. When Harry asked why William was no longer called Simon, he explained this was his middle name.

Bowled over by his charm and geographical knowledge, Harry quietened his suspicions and put the CV discrepancies down to the different first name. ‘William could quote places like Kapingamarangi (an atoll of Micronesia). It goes beyond geek quirk — no one knows this kind of thing. We were all impressed and there was no