Jewish nobleman 
A conman's tale: Di Caprio in Catch Me If You Can
No one knows his real name, but for a decade the master conman made fools out of businessmen and adoring women.
Like Leonardo DiCaprio's character in the film Catch Me If You Can, he evaded justice by using different aliases as he tricked his victims out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
In Paris he was an international lawyer, in Monaco a rich businessman, in Brussels a dashing entrepreneur and elsewhere a Jewish member of the nobility.
He was finally caught in Britain in the guise of a U.S. secret service agent.
Using the name Rudiger Sloot, he was living with a woman from Whitby, North Yorkshire, who was fleeced of thousands.
When police brought him to book the conman said the name he used in Britain was Anthony De Clerck.
He pleaded guilty at York Crown Court to deception and perverting the course of justice.
De Clerck, who is thought to be 39, was jailed for two and a half years - but even now police admit they are not sure of his true name, age or place of birth.
The slim, 6ft-plus conman met the single mother from Whitby in a bar in Italy
in 2004.
He pretended to be German and struck up a friendship with the woman who paid for everything because he claimed to have had his wallet stolen.
As Sloot said goodbye at the airport he talked her into handing over the rest of her cash, £250 in euros. When she got home he rang her pleading for more cash and she wired him £1,000.
Days later he turned up in Whitby and said he wanted to stay for a few weeks to get his finances sorted out.
She agreed, on the understanding he paid her back in full. He then persuaded her to buy a £13,000 BMW in her name.
She paid the deposit and he said he would look after the monthly payments.
Sloot told her he was working for the U.S. government at the Menwith Hill spy base and showed her a fake secret service photo ID.
The real Frank Abagnale, whose con-artist life formed the basis for the film 'Catch Me If You Can'
He even borrowed £100 from her to buy her a Christmas present.
Police were finally called on March 23, 2005, when Sloot started a row by calling her a 'rich bitch'.
A check in Germany revealed his passport and driving licence to be fake.
And the U.S. secret service said it had employed no one called Sloot.
The conman was charged and bailed by Scarborough magistrates. He then disappeared.
Days later, German police told officers in Yorkshire they thought Sloot was a Peter Van Damme.
Interpol revealed Van Damme had been sent to a 'mental ward' in 2001 in Belgium after he claimed to be a management consultant promising to take over a catering firm in Brussels for £12.4million.
Posing as a businessman he had also sold fake shares for a fictitious Monaco company and promised a £270million bank guarantee for another firm.
During all these scams he would 'wheedle' sums varying between 'tens and hundreds of thousands' from his victims.
Late in 2005, the conman, using the name Chris Vermeersch, was arrested for drink-driving in Warwickshire. He skipped bail.
The trail then went cold until a man using the name De Clerck was arrested earlier this year.
He had been working as a hotel manager and was suspected of defrauding the owners out of nearly £100,000.
Jimmy Duncan, of Graythwaite Manor, near Windermere, said: 'He was the epitome of sophistication, or at least we thought he was. We thought he was a gentleman but he was a conman.'
De Clerck had used their debit card and bank account to buy himself a Rolls Royce and a Jaguar.
Fingerprints revealed De Clerck, Sloot, Van Damme and Vermeersch to be the same man.
After De Clerck was jailed last month, Sergeant Darrin Knight, of North Yorkshire Police, said: 'There was never any sign of remorse and he gave the impression that people deserved what they got.'
Source: Daily Mail UK., October 4, 2008 
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