For grifters, the world is their oyster

Within four months this year investment scams in Hong Kong took in 1,174 victims who lost HK$708.6 million.

Four years ago Hong Kong's rich and famous discovered that a princess, let's call her AL, was a confidence trickster.

For nearly 10 years AL had used her charm, charisma, seduction, blatant lies and of course her undisputed beauty to convince friends to give her money. Her boyfriends were always affluent, and generous in her company.

After many brushes with the law in Hong Kong, the United States, Italy and France, AL seemingly disappeared.

Those memories of AL returned recently when I read about a similar case that has become a talking point of high society in Europe.

Ekaterina claims to be the beneficiary of a vastly wealthy family trust fund based in Lichtenstein. She has lived an opulent life-style in the tax haven of Monaco.

In London Ekaterina made friends with Bridget Hutchcroft, owner of an expensive dress agency next to Harrods patronized by film stars.

"Ekaterina never fully explained where her money came from but having visited her apartment in Monaco, I did believe that she had this huge trust fund that she told me about," said Hutchcroft.

She also compared Ekaterina to that famous con artist and fraudster, Anna Sorokin, who cheated rich New Yorkers out of millions between 2013 and 2017 and became the inspiration for the TV series Inventing Anna.

Apparently Ekaterina is uncannily similar to Anna Sorokin.

Digging by private detectives has discovered that Ekaterina Barrett was born in the Ukraine in 1956. Her parents held Azerbaijani nationality and gave her the birth name of Ekaterina Svetikova. She retained her parents' nationality. In 2000 she was briefly married to a British artist, Mitchel Barrett, and they lived in Vienna before divorcing.

Hutchcroft sued Ekaterina in London's courts in an attempt to get back 1.4 million (HK$14.29 million) she loaned Ekaterina to help her with the costs of her divorce.

After she failed to abide by an initial court order, the 1.4 million was raised to 1.6 million. Needless to say, private detectives have failed to track her down but discovered that the flat in Monaco she claimed to own is for sale for HK$192 million.

Hutchcroft did once visit Ekaterina in her sumptious Monaco apartment, an experience that left her convinced that Ekaterina was truly very rich. Even Ekaterina's bank manager assured her that Ekaterina was "as rich as a Rothschild."

As often happens in such cases the British police at first refused to investigate the case because it was, they claimed, a civil and not a criminal matter.

This changed when it was discovered that Ekaterina had been involved in, and convicted, of an international corporate fraud concerning an Austrian oil company.

The Austrians had confiscated her passport and banned her from entering Austria for nearly 10 years.

As for Ekaterina's exasperated former husband Mitchel Barrett, he has been busy warning everybody to stay clear of his former wife.

Ekaterina is represented by a senior London barrister, a king's counsel no less, who told the London court that Ekaterina denies owing money and said that his client is a wealthy woman with a home in Curzon Square, Mayfair, who did not boast about her riches.

He said Ekaterina has filed a counterclaim for the return of items from her collection which she alleged Hutchcroft had retained. There is likely to be a final legal outcome next year.

Cheng Huan is an author and a senior counsel who practices in Hong Kong