Alex Trelinski
A VICTIM of Spanish-based serial fraudster Mark Acklom has been told that she won’t get any compensation from her bank over being conned out of £750,000.
Barclays Bank has told Carolyn Woods that a six-month internal investigation has shown that they are not liable to make her any payment.
She argued that since a Barclays worker and a former employee were arrested during the police investigation on suspicion of conspiracy, the bank had failed in its duty of care to her as its customer.
Neither of those probed were subsequently arrested.
Mark Acklom, 50, moved to Spain with his Spanish wife Yolanda Ros in 2013 after a romance scam involving Woods.
He defrauded Woods out of her life savings by using the alias of Mark Conway who claimed to be a Swiss banker and MI6 agent.
He persuaded Woods to move her money into a Barclays account and then got her, under his coercive control, to transfer it all in a series of ‘loans’ into the account of an associate who was a former Barclays employee.
Acklom was tracked down to Zurich on a Europol arrest warrant after changing his name by deed poll.
He was sent back to the UK to face trial over the Woods fraud and was given an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence before being released in August 2021.
The fraudster was then re-arrested on an extradition warrant from Spain which he did not challenge over a 2015 arrest.
He was subsequently jailed for three years for cons that included defrauding two brothers by selling them non-existent properties he claimed to own in London.
Acklom served two years in a Murcia region prison before being granted early release last summer and is living in the country with his wife and two children.
At a ‘Proceeds of Crime’ hearing in Bristol last month- which is attempting to recover some of the money from Acklom that he swindled- his barrister revealed that his client was subject to a Spanish confiscation order of €374,000 but did not know whether he had paid it.
A final court session is scheduled to take place next week.
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