Alex Trelinski
A NOTORIOUS British fraudster who tricked a former girlfriend out of her £800,000 life savings has been freed from Murcia Penitentiary near Cartagena.
Mark Acklom was extradited to Spain two years ago after being freed from a near six-year sentence imposed in England in 2019.
The news was revealed by a UK court which said the 50-year-old has been released from jail in Spain after serving a further two years behind bars.
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No details were revealed of his current whereabouts, although his wife Yolanda Ros and their two children still live in Spain.
Acklom was arrested in Spain in 2015 and jailed for three years for cons that included defrauding two brothers by selling them non-existent properties he claimed to own in London.
He absconded while on temporary release as prepared for a parole hearing and fled to Switzerland, changing his name by deed poll.
He was tracked down to Zurich on a Europol arrest warrant and was sent back to the UK to face charges for defrauding Carolyn Woods out of her life savings in 2013 using the alias of Mark Conway who claimed to be a Swiss banker and MI6 agent.
Acklom served less than half of the eight-and-a-half year prison sentence for that crime before he was released in August 2021 only to be re-arrested on an extradition warrant from Spain which he did not challenge.
The fraudster moved to Spain with his Spanish wife in 2013 following the Carolyn Woods con which also involved not telling her that he was married.
He adopted a new alias to continue his frauds and was initially in the Marbella area before moving to the Murcia region.
Acklom now faces fresh legal problems as UK prosecutors have been using the Proceeds of Crime Act (Poca) to try to recover the money stolen from Ms Woods.
Over the last four years there have been a series of hearings at Bristol Crown Court under Poca legislation to establish Acklom’s criminal benefit and available assets.
A four-day hearing to determine his liability was due to be held in November but that date has now moved due to the unavailability of the judge and will instead be held next April.
The court heard that lawyers representing Acklom have lodged new applications with the court alleging an abuse of process, which will take time for the Crown to respond to.
John Hardy KC, prosecuting, told the court he is content for the full hearing to be postponed.
“I understand Mr Acklom has been released from his Spanish incarceration and, reading between the lines, we do not anticipate that Mr Acklom will seek to attend the hearing in person but may try to attend remotely,” he said.
In 1991, Acklom, then aged 16, was given a four-year prison term for a £466,000 mortgage fraud when he pretended to be a London 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.
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