|
Darius Guppy (born 1964) is a British-Iranian businessman, noted for his colourful ancestry, high-society contacts and unconventional opinions. When his father was ruined in the 1990s crisis at Lloyd's of London, Guppy sought revenge by successfully claiming from Lloyd's after a faked jewel robbery. Betrayed by an accomplice, he was eventually jailed. Guppy now lives with his family in South Africa and has expressed contempt for modern Britain and western governments in general as well as an intense dislike of the British media. ==Early life== Guppy's mother was the Iranian author and singer Shusha Guppy (1935–2008). His grandfather on his mother's side was the philosopher and theologian Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammed Kazem Assar, who held the chair of philosophy at Tehran University; his maternal cousin, another Assar grandson, is Hooman Majd. His father was Nicholas Guppy, the writer and explorer who died May 2012 in Bali. On his father's side he is a descendant of Lechmere Guppy, the naturalist who discovered the eponymous fish, as well as the inventor Sarah Guppy, Thomas Guppy, the engineer and business partner of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the explorer Amelia Guppy, Sir Francis Dashwood, Bt (founder of the Hellfire Club) and the medieval Plantagenet family. Guppy was educated at the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, Eton College, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he got a first class degree in history and French. In his second year, he became a member of the Piers Gaveston Society, as well as the Bullingdon Club. He was the best man at Earl Spencer's wedding to model Victoria Lockwood, his first wife; Lord Spencer was his best man in return. He was a close friend and boxing nemesis of Boris Johnson, who later became the Mayor of London, as well as of Count Gottfried von Bismarck. Brought up as a Christian, he is now a Muslim. He is married, has a daughter and two sons, and lives in Cape Town, South Africa. In February 1993, Guppy was jailed for staging a faked jewel robbery and claiming £1.8 million from the insurers, part of London's Lloyd's insurance market and the trial which accompanied his conviction became something of a media sensation. Guppy's fraud in New York was a fake jewel heist, intended as retribution against Lloyd's of London after his father lost his home and money in the Lloyd's of London financial crisis of the 1990s. Guppy and his business partner, Benedict Marsh, hired a man to fake a robbery, discharge a firearm and tie them up. The crime occurred without hitch and his company was paid out by Lloyd's for the supposed stolen jewels within a few weeks of the robbery occurring. The offence did not come to light until over a year later, after a police informer who had acted as an accomplice had been arrested attempting to imitate the pair. Guppy was sentenced to five years in jail. The presiding judge at his sentencing, which occurred three years later, stated: "…The offences were in my view extremely well planned and very carefully executed enterprises".〔His Honour, Judge Brooks, Sentencing Transcript, Snaresbrook Crown Court, 25 March 1993.〕 At his trial in its opening speech the prosecution described the scheme as: "bold, well-researched and meticulously executed".〔 It is believed that Guppy transported the jewels from the fake robbery by private aircraft which he piloted from the UK to mainland Europe. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Darius Guppy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|