Billionaire rapist flew around world after passport error

AN ERROR by authorities allowed a billionaire rapist to travel the world with impunity after he used a different name on his passport, a court heard.

Simon Halabi, a property tycoon worth £3billion in 2007 but declared bankrupt three years later, was convicted of a violent rape in France in 1998. Despite being handed a threeyear jail sentence, suspended for five years, he flew around the world unchecked, conducting deals that made him hundreds of millions of pounds.

In France, he had been convicted under the name Mohammed Halabi rather than Simon Halabi, which appeared on his British passport. It was only last November that the Metropolitan Police confirmed his identity.

According to the Evening Standard, at Westminster magistrates’ court, Halabi was then made the subject of strict notification rules as a convicted sex offender. Dc Alan Morgan, who brought the action, accused Halabi of concealing his rape conviction from US border officials and said: “I’m sure he has travelled to many countries around the world.”