‘Heiress’ Shahra Marsh told to pay back £400,000 booty

A WOMAN who conned auctioneers and fashion houses into thinking she was a wealthy heiress before they handed over thousands of pounds has been ordered to pay back £400,000.

Shahra Marsh, 53, who lived in Bayswater, pleaded guilty last October to 38 counts of criminal activity including fraud, deception and concealment during a three-year crime spree.

Southwark Crown Court heard how she posed as a French-Iranian heiress to prey on the trust afforded to the wealthy, writing cheques that she knew would bounce when purchasing jewellery, antiques and fine art.

She used the name Shahra Christina Sylvia Marsh de Savigny, befitting the high society ­circles she moved in, to execute her fraud, obscuring the more prosaic reality of a divorcee living on incapacity benefit.

Among her booty, described as an “Aladdin’s cave” when it was discovered by police, was a Giafferi diamond necklace worth £70,000, an antique grandfather clock worth £70,000 and a diamond ring from Guy Ellia ­valued at £110,000.

Her victims included Christie’s and Sotheby’s in London, and Beaussant Lefèvre in Paris. 

The glamorous con artist charmed shop assistants into handing over goods she insisted on needing for the next day, before the bogus cheques had time to clear.

At this week’s confiscation hearing at Southwark Crown Court, Ms Marsh, who is just months into a six-year jail sentence, was ordered to pay £400,000.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police Economic and Specialist Crime Command are now in the process of returning an additional £500,000 worth of jewellery and furniture to their rightful owners, and the remaining assets worth £400,000 will be sold to meet the confiscation order.

Detective Constable Marek Coghill said: “The confiscation of these assets and a further £8,000 in cash is a great result for London RART (Regional Asset Recovery Team). 

“Shahra Marsh was an extremely dishonest individual who was able to deceive and manipulate people’s trust and business practices. 

“She would drop names and utilise connections she had made in the jewellery world to provide the illusion she was a trustworthy client, so she could eventually circumvent the normal strict practices. Very wealthy people don’t like to be questioned about whether they can support a cheque. 

“It is a world that largely has to act on trust and she knows how to exploit that trust.”
JAMIE WELHAM