THE BOLD AND THE DARING

Lee Brahim Murray-Lamrani (AKA ‘Lightning Lee’ and ‘The Stopwatch’)

March 7, 2017

The “mastermind of Britain’s biggest cash robbery”, “from the streets kid” and “scary son of a b**ch” Lee Murray was born in Greenwich and nicknamed (much to his displeasure) ‘The Alien’ by fellow members...

Chrissie Rucker MBE

February 1, 2016

In 1994, with £6,000 in savings, Chrissie Rucker ended her career as a beauty journalist to launch The White Company from her boyfriend’s spare bedroom after struggling to find good quality white linen and...

Alison Platt

January 29, 2016

A “trolley dolly” turned CEO of Britain’s biggest estate agency, Alison Platt sees no difference between selling bleach and houses. Appointed a non-executive director of Tesco in January 2016, Teddington based Platt has also...

The Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge CBE (better known as Karren Brady, AKA “The First Lady of Football”)

December 20, 2015

Ambitious and hardworking to her core, North London born Karren Brady likes to describe herself as a “working mum”. Having become the youngest-ever managing director of a publicly listed company at the age of...

The Rt. Hon. The Lord Alliance CBE (Born: Davoud Alliance, Persian: داوود آلیانس, Hebrew: דייוויד אליאנס)

December 13, 2015

Iranian-British businessman Lord Alliance courageously used his powerful contacts to help save the ‘Forgotten Jews’ of Ethiopia in the 1980s and 1990s. Born in Kashan, Iran, David Alliance moved to Manchester at the age...

Christina Ketley

July 18, 2015

Though never married to the murdered gangland figure and timeshare fraudster John Palmer, Brentwood born Christina Ketley was truly the power behind his nasty thrown. Based in South Weald, Essex, mother of one Ketley...

Pete Halat

June 29, 2015

Former attorney and Mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi from 1989 to 1993, Pete Halat was acquitted of but still is often connected to the 1987 murders of his business partner Judge Vincent Sherry and his...

David Sullivan

June 16, 2015

Cardiff born David Sullivan owned the Daily Sport and the Sunday Sport between 1986 and 2007. Essex based and a father of two, Sullivan is a leading figure in the adult entertainment industry, a...

Radovan Vitek

May 31, 2015

A self-made Czech real estate billionaire, Radovan Vitek was listed as having a worth of £1.1 billion by Forbes in 2015. The owner of a home in Belgravia, this twice-married father of four was...

Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. (AKA “Buddy Fletcher”)

April 4, 2015

The fund founded by “The Black Madoff” was bankrupted in 2012 after Alphonse Fletcher, Jr.’s firms, Fletcher Asset Management and Fletcher International, failed to meet redemption requests of £97 million ($144 million). The son...

Martin Taylor

March 23, 2015

Despite Ed Miliband condemning the Conservatives as “the party of Mayfair hedge funds”, Labour happily and hypocritically accepted £591,800 from Mayfair hedge fund boss Martin Taylor between 2012 and 2015. Of his donation, the...

Eike Batista

March 15, 2015

This one time billionaire subsequently became one of the world’s fastest destroyers of wealth after being listed as being worth -$1.2 billion by CNBC in February 2015. A Brazilian business magnate and graduate of...

Alexandra Lebenthal (AKA “The New Queen of Wall Street”)

March 3, 2015

In her 2010 novel, The Recessionistas, this esteemed Jewish mother of three chronicled the consequences of economic collapse for a wealthy New York investment banker and his socialite wife. Alexandra Lebenthal describes herself as...

Sam Cook

February 22, 2015

Aged just 17, Yorkshire born Sam Cook borrowed £2,000 from his father and allegedly turned it into £21.2 million in less than 12 months. This trader “hated school” and viewed his fellow pupils as...

Dame Shirley Porter DBE (née Shirley Cohen)

February 20, 2015

Tesco heiress Dame Shirley Porter joined Twitter in August 2014 and describes herself there as “an English philanthropist and former UK politician residing in Israel”. She neglects to mention her rather controversial past there...

Oliver Trusgnach

February 1, 2015

A Belgian fantasist, Oliver Trusgnach falsely accused a former Belgian prime minister of abuse before becoming an £18,500 per year antiques gallery manager in Witney, Oxfordshire in 2000. During his employment, he “lived it...

Raj Von Badlo (also known as Raj Shastri and Raj Paull)

January 11, 2015

On his website, Bentley driving Raj Shastri states: “My father told me that if you want to do something, find the best person in the field, then copy and learn from them”. He did...

Aby Rosen

January 2, 2015

This Jewish real-estate mogul and contemporary art patron co-founded RFR Holding LLC with his childhood friend Michael Fuchs in 1991. Frankfurt born and Manhattan based, Aby Rosen owns and manages Manhattan’s best office properties including The...

Nathan Goralnik (AKA “Nate Goralnik”)

December 30, 2014

Brown and Yale educated Nathan Goralnik joined Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP’s New York office in 2012 and specialises in financial litigation and bankruptcy. He has previously lived in Saudi Arabia and Hong...

Karen Blackett OBE

November 20, 2014

The chief executive officer of Mediacom stated: “I still think it is odd that I’m the only senior black woman in the advertising industry” in November 2014. Karen Blackett controls a company with 1,000...

Lady de Rothschild (also known as Lynn Forester de Rothschild, née Lynn Forester)

November 3, 2014

This thrice married, New Jersey born, Columbia Law School graduate was introduced to Sir Evelyn de Rothschild by Henry Kissinger in 1998. The couple married in 2000, were invited to spend part of their...

Ryan Serhant

October 24, 2014

Born in Texas and educated at Hamilton College, New York, Ryan Serhant began his career as an actor on the long running series As the World Turns. He played alongside Amanda Seyfried, Ben Stiller...

Felix Dennis (1947 – 2014)

June 23, 2014

This maverick publishing legend and poet founded Dennis Publishing in 1974 and was the first person to say the word “cunt” on live British television in 1970 on David Frost’s The Frost Programme. Born...

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (AKA “The Winklevii”)

June 22, 2014

Born in The Hamptons, the 6’5” tall Winklevoss twins have achieved success in both rowing and online ventures. Their long-running legal wranglings with Mark Zuckerberg over who founded Facebook scored them a settlement of...

Archibald Hall (AKA Archibald Thomson-Hall, Roy Fontaine, the Killer Butler and the Monster Butler, 1924 – 2002)

April 11, 2014

A bisexual conman, thief and serial killer who targeted the aristocracy. Hall was born in Glasgow and took elocution lessons during his first of many stints in jail. He variously pretended to be an...

Paul Reichmann (1930 – 2013)

October 30, 2013

This Vienna born Canadian businessman built and lost a fortune on Canary Wharf and was renowned for his frugality and as a “man of honour”. Strictly Jewish, Reichmann also developed New York’s Financial Center...

Yan Assoun

October 21, 2013

The term “bonfire of the bankers” truly applies to the life of this divorced Frenchman who has variously been based in London and New York. Back in 2009, he told Bloomberg: “I haven’t cried...

Catherine Hooper

October 21, 2013

The founder of Black Umbrella moved in with Andrew Madoff three days before the black storm of his father’s Ponzi scheme broke. Hooper, a graduate of Bryn Mawr, launched her firm – which aids...

Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun

July 28, 2013

If being vice president of product development at Tiffany’s isn’t enough, why not help yourself to a little bit more to be sure? That’s just what Georgetown University graduate Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun did after 22...

Nicholas van Hoogstraten (also known as Adolph von Hessen and born Nicholas Marcel Hoogstraten)

July 27, 2013

This controversial tycoon is allegedly worth £500 million and believes Robert Mugabe to be “one hundred percent decent and incorruptible”. Nicknamed “The Maniac in the Mink” and “Nasty Nick”, van Hoogstraten is famed for...

Jesse Livermore (1877 – 1940)

May 19, 2013

One of the greatest traders ever to have lived. This thrice married American was famed for making and losing several multi-million dollar fortunes and once stated: “People who look for easy money invariably pay...

Michelle Mone OBE

May 18, 2013

When her husband left her, she could of ‘moaned’ but instead she got on with it and paid her now ex-husband some £24 million for his share of her lingerie business. Glasgow born, Mone...

Hillel Nahmad (AKA “Helly Nahmad”)

April 26, 2013

A scion of a prominent art dealing dynasty, Hillel Nahmad (or “Helly” as he’s known to his friends), is the proprietor of the Helly Nahmad Gallery. He was charged with wire fraud and bankrolling...

Andreas Panayiotou

March 24, 2013

A self-made mogul and former champion boxer who cannot read or write fluently. He thinks “differently” and built a £400 million fortune by creating and then selling a buy-to-let empire of almost 6,000 rental...

Peter Scott (born Peter Craig Gulston, 1931 – 2013)

March 23, 2013

A modern day Robin Hood who claimed to have been “sent by God to take back some of the wealth that the outrageously rich had taken from the rest of us”. This Belfast born...

Hilary Devey

March 20, 2013

This Lancastrian tycoon transformed the Dragons’ Den with her 80s style shoulder pads and comments such as “he made my foot itch”. Thrice married Devey has five homes around the world and claims to...

Marcus Cooper

March 14, 2013

A property developer extraordinaire with a “passion for deals”. He has been involved in deals involving many of London’s most expensive properties and founded the Marcus Cooper Group in 1991. Cooper purchased the capital’s...

Ronald Edwards (1931 – 1994), better known as Buster Edwards

February 4, 2013

Variously a boxer, nightclub owner, florist and criminal. Edwards became famous as one of the 1963 Great Train Robbery gang. He fled to Mexico but returned to Britain in 1966 when his £150,000 share...

Giovanni Di Stefano

February 4, 2013

Jailed for 14 years in March 2013 on charges of deception, fraud and money laundering, Di Stefano is a man who is often referred to as “The Devil’s Advocate”. He has been variously linked...

David Elias

February 1, 2013

Some say he died in 2009, others, including the Serious Fraud Office, suspect he’s hiding out in the rainforests of Borneo. This bankrupted businessman was best known for drinking red wine from a teapot...

Eric Hersman

January 21, 2013

The Sunday Times describe him as a “secretive US financier” but Hersman, who is a sometime resident of London’s Bulgari Hotel is also said to have brokered the $1.6 billion buyout of Formula One...

Robert Bourne and Sally Greene OBE

December 4, 2012

Well-known for their numberplates “2 BE” and “NOT 2B,” this power couple live on Cheyne Walk and are a little bit like Marmite. In Chelsea, Bourne has aroused controversy by attempting to gain planning...

Leslie "Les" Allen-Vercoe (also known as Les Vercoe)

May 23, 2012

This property developer tried to sell Britain’s ugliest crib, Updown Court at Windlesham in Surrey, for £70 million in 2008. It languished on the market for years and looked like a cross between a...

Raffaele Mincione

May 23, 2012

He was once engaged to Heather Mills but had a very lucky escape when she chose to marry Sir Paul McCartney instead. This Italian banker got the bargain of the century when he purchased...

Captain Simon Mann

May 22, 2012

This former army officer boldly led a coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea in 2004. He was imprisoned for 34 years but received a presidential pardon from President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in 2009. This Old...

Jack O'Shea

May 12, 2012

A gentleman butcher. He’s deservedly been named Butcher of the Year by The Independent and his shops in Brussels and Knightsbridge are a mecca for foodies. He took on the might of Sir Roger...

James Murdoch

May 11, 2012

Considered by many as the pretender to the fortune of his father, Rupert, the phone hacking scandal may have put paid to that. He dropped out of Harvard to start a hip hop label...

Donald Trump Sr.

May 5, 2012

The Donald is an example of the case of if you owed the bank £5,000, they’d close you down but if you owed the bank £5 billion, you own the bank. Nearly bankrupt in...