Conman 'Lord' Rodley, accomplices jailed for bank heist bid

06 March 2009

'Lord' Hugh Rodley, a "serial conman" who tried to extract £229 million from a Japanese bank in London, was yesterday jailed for eight years.

Rodley, who bought himself a title and lived as an aristocrat, almost pulled off the world's largest theft along with his team of hired Belgian hackers and international money launderers.

Sentencing the gang at Snaresbrook crown court, east London, Judge Martyn Zeidman, QC, told Rodley, of Gloucestershire, "You have lived a life of luxury in a mansion ... and you have given yourself the trappings of wealth and delusions of grandeur." Rodley was convicted of conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to transfer criminal property.

Accomplice David Nash, a Soho sex shop owner, was convicted of helping Rodley attempt to transfer the cash abroad and was given three years in prison. Nash, 47, of Durrington, West Sussex, had "fronted" several bank accounts, the court heard.

Kevin O'Donoghue, of Birmingham, the bank's security supervisor and 'inside man' for the heist, was sentenced to four years and four months in jail, computer expert Jan Van Osselaer, 32, was given three-and-a-half years and his colleague Gilles Poelvoorde, 35, four years.

Another defendant, Rodley's 74-year-old business partner Bernard Davies, committed suicide two days before the trial began. A note was read to the court in which he said he had "lost the will to live" after receiving death threats from an underworld figure because he would not reveal Rodley's and Nash's whereabouts.