An attractive blonde Londoner from Poplar, East London, England, has defrauded nine renowned auction houses, boutiques, fashion houses and jewellers in Paris, France, of around £400 000 ($741 520). The habit of apportioning trust, based on stereotypical appearances, which has served these firms well for a long time, was shaken to its core by Ms. Shahra Marsh, 52.
Apparently, if you appear to be “their usual type of affluent customer” (www.independent.co.uk) renowned establishments, dealing in prestige items, will hand over the goods before the cheque has been cleared!
All you have to do, according to the set pattern Ms. Marsh adhered to between May 2005 and July 2007, is:
a) Establish rapport: look the part of a wealthy, trust-worthy individual. This may require research on the template employed, but, in this case anyway, being blonde, charming and attractive helps. Where French businesses are involved, speaking and writing fluent French helps too.
b) Maintain rapport: demonstrate sound knowledge of the items you have decided you want to acquire. This involves doing your research beforehand so that you know what you want and which establishment has it.
c) Bid successfully: easy to do if you know that no matter how ludicrously high you out-bid your competitors you are not actually going to pay the price.
d) Relentlessly insist you receive the items prior to the cheque you happily send being cleared, which usually takes one month. This requires one to be “persistent and persuasive” (www.dailymail.co.uk).
e) Conceal items: Ms. Marsh chose to sequester her numerous goodies in a central London storage unit.
f) Vanish. By the time Ms. Marsh’s cheques bounced she could no longer be contacted; phone calls were unanswered and demands for payment were returned to sender with ‘Gone Away’ scrawled on them (www.guardian.co.uk). She maintained a number of addresses in London.
This pattern worked astonishingly well for Ms. Marsh, who was able to ferret away around £400 000 worth of jewellery, antiques, sculptures, French heirlooms and paintings. Her first heist, in May 2005, involved duping Tajan auction house of £114 800 ($212 816) worth of goods, by convincing them to send her the goods before her fraudulent cheque cleared which, of course, it never did. As if this was not enough, she then went on to cheat Massol auction house out of £12 000 ($22 246) worth of goods in two consecutive manipulations in the same week. Both times Massol felt comfortable sending her the goods before the cheques cleared. Possibly the most audacious example of her front, was convincing the manager of Giafferi auctioneers to take the Eurostar train, meet her at the Eurostar terminal at Waterloo station in London and hand over jewellery; including a sapphire and diamond ring, diamond brooch, diamond and gold bracelet, a gold Cesar pendant and a diamond and emerald necklace. Again, her cheque bounced (www.independent.co.uk and www.telegraph.co.uk). Now, that takes some attitude.
How do you persuade professional people to take such business risks? Apparently, according to Ms. Sonal Dashani, who is prosecuting in Ms. Marsh’s legal proceedings, “The purchasing of fine art and jewellery is a system that has been in operation for a long time and is based on trust. The vendors take stock of a person and it appears she instilled trust in them” (www.independent.co.uk) Well, they didn’t take good stock of Ms. Marsh and it may just be time for the old ‘taking stock’ system to be up-dated with a scam alert!
More feasible when it comes to explaining handing over goods before payment, is the following explanation given by Ms. Dashani, “The auctioneers are keen to avoid loss of a sale so, faced with losing that sale, the items are handed over. She was very persuasive and insistent.” (www.independent.co.uk). Clearly, Ms. Marsh has a keen sense of business stress and how to assert herself.
Ms. Marsh denies 7 counts of obtaining property by deception, 12 counts of concealing criminal property and 4 counts of fraud involving the businesses Massol, Tajan, Beaussant Lefevre, Gros Delettrez, Piasa, Giafferi and Du Deffoy. Opening statements were heard in Southwark Crown Court in London on 25 September. The case is being heard in London because it was a London Metropolitan Police investigation which unearthed Marsh’s hidden stash of French property. It must have been a sight to behold; the lock-up was stuffed with beautiful things, including a Louis XV commode, a Napoleon III table, five paintings, Louis Vuitton luggage, a Hermes handbag and a Hermes clock and ashtray as well as all the exquisite jewellery (www.guardian.co.uk and http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk). Marsh made no comment to the police when she was arrested in April this year but has now claimed that the items have been mistakenly identified, despite the fact the court heard that many are “one-off and unique” (www.telegraph.co.uk). She also maintains that some of the goods were sent to her incorrectly or were damaged and that is why she cancelled her cheques (www.guardian.co.uk). The case continues.
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