ARCADIA Simon Davison, a former Flying Squad de-
tective who is now director of investigations at AnotherDay, a London-based security and investigations consultancy, says HNW cli- ents have at last become wise to the basic security threats that can be posed by Insta- gram photos of valuable goods or foreign holidays. But newer risks are emerging. ‘As AI gets more and more sophisticated,
it’s allowing criminals to do more research and pull off more complicated scams,’ he says. Large language models mean criminals
can produce far more convincing emails and documents to instigate frauds, while deep- fake technology has blown open the poten- tial of impersonation. In Hong Kong last year, scammers used publicly accessible vid- eo to create AI versions of British engineer- ing giant Arup’s CFO and other colleagues. They set up a video conference with their mark – an employee at the same company – during which the deepfakes asked her to wire more than $25 million to apparently real bank accounts. Davison is not one to bash the force he used to work for, but says firms like his now routinely build cases for the police that are ready to prosecute, because detectives them- selves don’t have the capacity to do the work. Thieves and organised criminals are also
adapting to the market, targeting what’s val- uable and easy to pinch. Chris Marinello, a Brooklyn-born lawyer turned investigator, made his name tracking stolen masterpiec- es, including several that were looted by the Nazis. Now his firm, Art Recovery Interna- tional, spends more time searching for sto- len watches, cars and handbags. ‘Over the last few years, criminals have re- alised that it’s much easier to put a watch in their pocket than it is to steal a painting,’ Marinello says from his London office. ‘It’s the same criminals – they’re just following financial trends and they see these six-figure watches on the wrists of people who are un- protected, whether they’re outside a pub in Mayfair or on vacation. We’re in a very bad place right now, where, in the West, crime is completely rampant.’ As we speak in the middle of August, he has just closed his latest watch case – that of a $200,000 Richard Mille 67-01 titanium timepiece. It was stolen last December with- out its owner – a Hollywood actor – even re- alising it. How? A long-time associate of the actor had switched it with a Chinese-made forgery while he borrowed the real watch
with the permission of the victim, who was filming a movie in London at the time. The fraud fell apart when the owner’s fake
replacement was stolen months later in a separate hit and registered as missing. When an unwitting new owner brought the real watch into a Las Vegas service centre, it was flagged as the stolen forgery. But the stunned customer had bought it weeks before the theſt, and had the documents to prove it. Marinello followed the trail of what was in fact the real watch from the Vegas store, through a string of ‘Instagram-only’ watch dealers, crypto bros and a ‘sleazy’ New York watch shop that did a fine line in forged war- ranties and certificates. That investigation led him to the thief, who is now on the run. ‘The victim said to me, “Oh my God, I loaned this guy my watch.”’ Marinello knows of cases in which corrupt
hotel receptionists have tipped off criminals about high-value belongings seen in the lobby. Part of his job has become educating would- be clients. Some of the advice is a no-brainer – he’s always stunned to discover how oſten high-value belongings are not insured. He also advises anyone to avoid buying from In- stagram sellers or people with “excessive crypto vibes”, and to use a specialist escrow service so that both parties can be satisfied with a sale before a transaction is completed. If a theſt does take place, Marinello advis-
es reporting it immediately – but adds that you shouldn’t expect the bad guy to get caught. By the time someone like him is on board, the original thief is long gone, having sold the loot or handed it up the organised crime chain. The investigator’s priority is to trace the asset, typically on behalf of an in- surance company desperate not to pay out. ‘I had a guy just yesterday whose watch
was stolen by a gang of Moroccans in Spain,’ Marinello says before going back to his desk. ‘But they were paid by somebody else to steal the watches, and they’re gone, straight on to the next victim. The watch will eventually be sold, and some poor sucker will buy it with- out a certificate, without its original box, and they won’t ask many questions.’ Back in the US, meanwhile, Panuccio is still confident that he can locate the missing Porsche, which he presumes is hidden in a garage somewhere abroad. ‘But it’s not going to be the type of thing you can conceal for long,’ he says. ‘It’s going to show up eventual- ly. Ultimately, this guy is going to be brought to justice.’
THE YACHT SET
NEW YEAR’S PEEVE
Vassi Chamberlain
I FIRST VISITED the French Caribbean is- land of St Barths in December 2003. I’d been invited by a British friend, who’d recently moved to New York and had decided, on the suggestion of her fancy new American friends, to rent a villa over Christmas and New Year. Back then, I knew almost nothing about
the island, but I’ll never forget my first sight of it as our propellor plane approached the terrifyingly short, sloping runway. Bobbing in the glittering aquamarine sea below was a vast flotilla of superyachts, like a car park of floating mega-mansions, all at anchor off the pulchritudinous main port of Gustavia. As we walked through the tiny spa-like air-
port to the rental car area, I spotted white boards bearing the handwritten names of that day’s arrivals. They read like a roll call of America’s financial, business, art, film and music world supremos: there were signs for former Revlon owner Ron Perelman, finan- cier George Soros, Star Wars director George Lucas, art dealer Larry Gagosian, artist Francesco Clemente and rapper Puff Daddy – all on one day. Then I spotted Uma Thur- man picking up a Jeep. Where was I? That first holiday was my induction into
what was then a little-known and ultra- rarefied world – one that was thrilling and seductive, where billionaires and their aco- lytes quietly vaunted their wares among like-minded folk. It was a world I was able to observe at
close range for the next ten Christmases. However, despite the thrill of partying and boat-hopping with the great and the good, of endless people-spotting and bacchanalia, I would come to understand that it had a dark- er side too, thanks to its popularity among some of the most hubristic and, occasional- ly, most corrupt people on the planet. My first superyacht experience on St Barths
was aboard Octopus, the 413-foot vessel (then valued at $200 million) owned by Microsoſt co-founder Paul Allen, who held a party every year on 29 December. It became, at
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