Charles began collecting classic cars in 1979 with a Ferrari 365 GT. In 1982 he married a model and by the mid 1980s had amassed a collection of 15 valuable sports cars.
By the late 1980s the conference business was booming and the mansion was being hired for £25,000 per day. In early 1989 his bank noted that some of his old Ferraris listed on the accounts had tripled in value and loaned him £5m to turn it into a proper business. This rose to £7m shortly afterwards and then a £3m overdraft was added to the account. Charles eventually accumulated over 50 Italian exotics valued at around £20m.
However, by early 1991 bills came due.
Having used the family seat as security Charles was struggling to finance debts of over £10m and needed £4.5m to get out of the hole. With his cars insured for far more than they were worth Charles colluded with his wife and two estate workers to pull an insurance scam that would result in four cars being cut up and then reported as stolen.
Over the course of three nights in May 1991 Charles and two estate employees dismantled a Ferrari 195 Inter, 340 America and 250 Europa and a Maserati Birdcage, many of the parts being burned in the vast furnace used for heating the garage complex.
Some smaller parts were stored in a lock up outside of London, and Charles waited a few weeks before making the ‘discovery’ that the cars were missing and lodging a claim for £4.5m.
Police were suspicious from the outset as were Charles’s insurers, who refused to pay up. Charles initially took the case to court but withdrew the claim when his bank stepped in with a £15m rescue package.
That was that until his by-now estranged wife spilled the beans to police after being arrested for forging a number of prescriptions. Charles was subsequently charged, and he was jailed for seven years.
Part of that sentence was for obtaining money by deception - in 1994 it had emerged Charles had sold Jon Shirley of Microsoft a fake Ferrari 250 SWB that he had had built on the base of the much less valuable 250 GTE 2+2, giving it the serial number of a real short wheelbase 250 that had been missing for a long time.
He may have got away with it had the real 250 SWB not been found, but that’s another story for another time.
https://supercarnostalgia.com/blog/lord-brocket-the-ferraris-and-the-furnace
http://classic-cars-talks.blogspot.com/2013/03/lord-brockets-butchered-beauties.html
Karma came calling him in 2014 though, a team of three men packed a convoy of moving vans with his family’s art and antique furniture.
The police caught up with them and forced them to unload, and replace, all the items back in the mansion.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2665315/The-jailed-peer-three-vans-antiques-999-chase-motorway-Police-called-Brocket-reclaims-family-valuables.html
I remember that story from back in the day. Sad times...
ReplyDeleteKarma's a bitch, but I did like the bit about the thieves have to take back the loot themselves, before presumably having their asses hauled off to jail.
ReplyDelete