The Conman Who Faked His Own Death | Conmen Case Flies | Real Crime

there's a way to make an entrance my destiny it was now a conspiracy of witches download veli today [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] con men the most devious of all criminals charming cool and calculating they betray trust and devastate lives yet remain a complete enigma we are about to explore the intriguing world of these master criminals giving an unprecedented insight into the workings of the complex minds of some of the world's most cunning con men in this show we will dig deep to reveal the dramatic and shocking intricacies of one man's elaborate crimes and reveal how he was dramatically brought to justice the story of carl hildebrand unfold like a best-selling thriller a man who was a fugitive from justice for almost a decade missing and presumed dead after a fake suicide he evaded the police on both sides of the atlantic until a bizarre twist of fate exposed his ingenious deception and the disturbing and shocking truth behind his disappearance in my opinion carl hildebrand is an excellent con man [Music] carl aldebrant's family probably went through a living hell wondering what had happened to their son carl's mother certainly believed that her son had committed suicide she thought he was dead the mystery of what had happened to carl hildebrandt would remain unsolved for eight years with the con man and the law playing a complex game of cat and mouse he was obviously a very determined and inventive individual the police suspected that he'd gone to south africa but they had no idea where carl was i wonder whether he views himself as maybe a modern day robin hood he takes from the rich and gives to a more deserving cause himself the story begins in south yorkshire england in the late 1980s carl hildebrandt lived in rotherham and was well known in his local community well carl hildebrand was a member of um well established family business in rotherham um on the face of it a thriving business uh he seemed to be very ambitious and awkwardly mobile and looking for better things i think the hildebrand business was a bakery at the at the tang yard in wickersley uh it was a well-known bakery business they had four or five outlets in the rotherham area and appeared to be quite successful a local family bakery what happened as far as i can recollect is that a car took over the business and it ran for a short period of time after that and eventually closed down carl then opened a restaurant the waterloo well in whiston which is a village just outside rotherham uh that didn't last very long either i don't know exactly how long perhaps a year or something like that i don't think it was very successful with the family business running into financial difficulties it seemed that carl hildebrand began making money by less ethical means he was allegedly involved in a very complicated dti scam is one of six men who were alleged to have defrauded the dti out of a couple of hundred thousand pounds in bogus grants and and various other things um very complicated and typical of the sort of thing that carl seemed to get involved in the dti scam carl hildebrandt was accused of was an elaborate scheme he and five other men were arrested and charged with fraud the accusation was that the men had created fictitious firms and businesses in a sophisticated scheme to fraudulently obtain almost two hundred thousand pounds in government grants hilda grant was released on bail due to stand trial in 1990 with an impending court case and the prospect of a prison sentence facing carl hildebrandt it seems he had no intention of standing trial out on bail in 1989 carl hildebrandt and his then girlfriend began to put the paperwork together to dramatically flee the country before the court case and then start a new life in south africa carl hildebrandt sold his mercedes to a finance company for 28 000 pounds he then promptly leased the same car back from them one of the leasing conditions was that the car did not leave the uk however carl hildebrandt did not honour the agreement he pocketed the profit from the sale and then stole the car he took it to belgium the car was placed in a container along with personal possessions in the port of zeebrugge ready to be taken to south africa phase one of the plan to start a new life abroad was completed but hildebrand and his girlfriend would still need more cash to start their life overseas and it appeared they had easy access to a lot of money we had a girlfriend at that time who worked for a rotherham company nisrescofeld who were a distribution outlet for grocery stores she was quite senior secretary in there i believe four checks were stolen from a checkbook belonging to the manage director of the company those checks were made out for large sums of money and eventually that was transferred into uh some in excess of a hundred thousand pounds and those checks were used to open a bank account in leads fictitious details were used and it was never ascertained who actually opened that bank account well the police suspected that khalid opened that bank account that's what they thought at the time there are a number of motives that con men employ in seeking to attain their goal the one that we know most commonly is for financial gain and we see this in the newspapers most often where they've built either banks or individuals out of large sums of money another would be that they seek revenge or retribution because they feel they've been cheated in life and that they haven't gotten what they deserve and they attempt to get that back on others i think that we can all appreciate the law of a fast book basically and so there's a series of decisions that people would go through when contemplating a scam you'd look at whether you could get away with it or not what you stood to lose and what you stood to gain it seems that at the time that carl hildebrand started his scans he was experiencing some financial strain and so that to him would have been an indication that he didn't have too much to lose but he had everything to gain well everyone have to search their individual conscience to decide if you know if they felt strong enough to refuse a lot of money against doing something immoral and illegal um i mean it's a calculation i guess a lot of people make all the time and they don't they don't go down the criminal road most of us don't lie because we're afraid that we'll get caught and will either be humiliated or punished and con artists don't seem to have that same type of fear and anxiety well that money was used to buy a large amount of crew grounds which is a south african gold coin south african krugerrands were first minted in 1967. each coin contains one ounce of 22 karat gold in today's market one krugerrand coin is worth in the region of 360 pounds and carl hildebrand was suspected of acquiring enough of them to live a very comfortable life in south africa well i haven't counted how many crew ground coins carl had but he had a hundred thousand pounds worth of these allegedly this is made of the finest gold and these things are very very expensive at the time when carl allegedly had these in his possession they were worth over 100 pounds each then with the police alerted to the stolen checks and aware they'd been converted into krugerrands they began to connect carl hildebrand to the crime if their suspicions were right his plan to leave the uk and head to south africa was flawed i'm informed that carl's mistake as far as these coins were concerned is that once you buy these coins in this country or any other country you can't take them back into south africa as a coin you've got to change them back into the south african currency before you can take them back this would ruin his plot because he would have to take a chance on being able to smuggle these coins through customs in south africa which probably would have been very difficult bearing in mind that at the time we're talking about south africa was not a free and open country carl hildebrand's trial date was approaching fast he was involved in other alleged financial scams where he was trying to obviously get hold of a lot of money with a view to skipping the country well the allegation again is that uh carl was trying to sell these crew grounds some of them were eventually recovered in a carrier bag in the back of a car at a garage in mexibur just a few days before carl hildebrand and his then girlfriend were due to flee the uk and fly to south africa the police made their move and caught up with them they were arrested and interviewed on suspicion of theft and handling stolen goods carl hildebrant was known to the police and therefore the press really because of his uh his activities in some fairly dodgy financial dealings well he was interviewed on suspicion of uh theft of the czechs uh from the niece risquefield uh the uh the handling of stolen goods which were the krugerrands because they had been they were the proceeds of theft of the cheques uh the the car was found in zubrugger so he was also interviewed for theft of that car because that car the mercedes car was on finance and they also found documentation uh whereby he had a transit van on finance and he'd actually sold that they recovered that as well now arrested and charged a second time carl hildebrand was facing two court cases one for the dti scam and the second for the stolen checks things were not looking good for carl hildebrandt having been charged with these offences the girlfriend that carl had at that time was granted bail carl was remanded in custody at magistrates court in rotherham his family offered to put up sureties for him which were accepted by the court and he was granted bail in the surety of two fifty thousand pound sureties uh wither the bail conditions that he should reside at his home address and report to the police uh and sign the bail book at rotherham police station but no one could have predicted carl hildebrandt's next move shortly after his family posted bail carl hildebrandt executed his secret master plan that left the police his family and his local community shocked and devastated creating a mystery that lasted almost a decade in 1989 carl hildebrant was facing charges of fraud along with five other men before his day in court carl hildebrand had been charged a second time he was arrested on suspicion of theft and handling stolen goods after blank checks were stolen from his girlfriend's workplace and cashed for one hundred thousand pounds it was thought he was planning to use the money to leave the uk and flee to south africa he was remanded in custody until his family posted bail of fifty thousand pounds the allegations regarding the original crimes a lot of planning went into it the opening of a false bank account the preparation of for flight the car to ziprugger all this was meticulously planned by carl so i would say he was certainly quite bright and and did the job well in march 1990 just a few days before carl hildebrandt was due to stand trial in south yorkshire england he stunned his family and local community by pulling a stunt that was to create a 10-year mystery he continued to sign the bail book for some considerable time uh there became a time when he just didn't turn up to sign the bail book he was circulated wanted by the south yorkshire police for breach of his bail conditions the date of his uh court date where he was supposed to arrive for committal that passed and the warrant was issued from northern magistrates court for failing to appear carl hildebrandt had disappeared the search was on for the fugitive but just two days after his disappearance the police received a phone call revealing an unexpected twist in the tail it seemed hildebrandt would not stand trial on the face of it it appeared that carl hildebrandt was dead the next thing we heard was he was due to appear in court and the police were saying that they'd found his car in the humber estuary he'd hide a car driven it into the humber estuary with obviously the implication that he'd committed suicide with carl hildebrand's car submerged in the perilous river humber in northern england the humber side underwater police squad was scrambled to recover his [Music] body we were called out to assess the situation uh arriving at the scene we could see a partially submerged vehicle and at that time we could only distinguish it was red in colour it's not common but it's not unheard of for people to commit suicide in this fashion the search we did was wearing full diving equipment i was elected as the diver on the day i entered the water searched in and around the vehicle to establish that there was nobody in the vehicle due to the type of water the river humber there's so much suspended silts there's no visibility whatsoever once you go under the water so it was a case of searching around the vehicle and in this event i actually removed the vehicle registration mark and came back up to the surface to enable me to read it and pass that information on to my colleagues on the riverbank and they conducted a police national computer check of the vehicle registration [Music] that car was traced to a car hire company in park gate rotherham and the owner uh was able to confirm that carl hildebrand died that car the police had directly linked the submerged car to carl hildebrandt but the circumstances were mysterious and while his family grieved the police were suspicious no body was recovered from the river and the question began to emerge what had actually happened to carl hildebrant had the man facing charges drowned himself to avoid having to go to trial or had he faked his death it had sort of connotations of reggie perrin to it the tv series where clothes were left at the side of the river and reggie was never seen again he was very much missing but presumed dead and it was very much a story out of a thriller rather than than an average rotherham crime story it was believed that he'd try to fool everyone into believing that he committed suicide the police never ever believed that but carl's mother certainly did few things in life are as painful as losing a child and for a person to be have that level of disregard for the feelings of someone who reared them is unconceivable to most of us in society carl hildebrand's family probably went through a living hell wondering what had happened to their son she indefinitely suspected that he had killed himself by drowning in the river humber she in fact blamed the police for that at the time she was very very upset about it they would have had numerous unanswered questions their their life probably would be just a series of of wonderings you know looking at people on the street could that be him where is he if something dreadful happened to him if you don't have a body and you don't have the answers to those questions you've got no closure and it's very difficult for people to then move on and move forward in their lives what we know about grief is that it's easier to resolve the grief if you have the ritual the funeral the ability to say goodbye and when there's no body and the person's presumed dead and just missing their grief is prolonged because they always wonder what happened you know was there something i could have done to prevent it carl hildebrand's family may have believed that the river humber in northern england had taken his life but not everyone was so certain it was obvious from the police's attitude that they weren't at all convinced that that's what he'd actually done and and they seem to be treating it as very much an attempt to uh to escape justice so um from the outset the hunt was on basically they were looking very much looking for a carl hildebrandt who was alive and well carl hildebrandt's actions in faking his own death to me appear to be the actions of a desperate man a man who is panicking and is totally focused on himself and making a good escape it takes a certain type of personality to be able to make a clear cut away from friends and family and just to start again under a new identity you have to be quite a superficial person quite a self-centered person to be able to a cause your family to to believe that you are dead and not take any actions to to put that right but also to be able to emotionally separate from people in such a sudden and shocking manner and at no point did he try and attempt to make any kind of contact to really to put his family out of misery the police investigation obviously couldn't go any further until they could find call because they gathered all the evidence they required for the prosecutions there was nothing more they could do it but to put it on hold [Music] the hunt for hildebrandt may have hit a dead end but this mysterious and dramatic story of a car being discovered in northern england's river humber with no body inside was not going to go away the sheffield star on the anniversary of carl's disappearance annually ran a story about it with a photograph of carl and where is he now that sort of thing because the police never closed the case and because they were always actively searching for him and there were also various rumors that used to pop up i mean at one stage apparently he'd come back to see some mates and then slipped away again i don't think that was ever proven to be the case but it was a very strong rumor it's the only case of its kind i've ever reported on and not something that you would expect to report on in a in a court in rotherham basically so uh very unique and and obviously from our point of view you know the local media it was a great story so we were obviously keen to keep it going so we kept printing the stories quite regularly the police were still hunting for him reporting on the rumors and i suspect they ran that for seven or eight years in carl hildebrand's absence life in his hometown continued in 1991 four of the men involved in the elaborate government fraud allegedly with hildebrandt were jailed then five years later in 1996 carl hildebrand's father died not knowing whether his son was alive or dead but in all this time the police had not given up their search interpol had become involved in the hunt but hiltbrandt appeared to have vanished into thin air almost a decade after his mysterious disappearance whether alive or dead it seemed doubtful that carl hildebrandt would ever be seen again that is until a remarkable and dramatic breakthrough that came directly out of the blue eight years after carl hildebrand's disappearance back in 1990 the real stroke of luck came one day when some blow back from his holidays in america opened the star and there was a story about carl hildebrand missing presumed dead with a photograph of him and and he realized that hang on i've been having a drink with that bloke and wasn't carl hildebrandt it was charles stein so told the paper and and that was that the hunt was on again he was quite successful until he decided to mix it with a guy from sheffield by pure coincidence the police's instincts were confirmed rotherham's reggie perrin was alive well this was a great piece of look for the south yorkshire police they had no idea where carl was and and here we had a guy from south yorkshire was telling them not only was he telling them he was telling them what name he was using as well charlie stains so he'd obviously he was living under an assumed identity and that gave the police something more to to work with we had no idea how he'd come across that name or why he'd assumed that name at that particular time except that that was the name he was using for in fort lauderdale the name charles stains may have been a mystery yet to be solved but for the first time in eight years in england the yorkshire police finally had the breakthrough they'd been hoping for but this was just the beginning the police had confirmed their suspicions that they had a long way to go locating and extraditing him from the usa would not be easy bringing carl hildebrand to justice was still a long shot but luck seemed to be on brian sutton and the south yorkshire police's side in another twist of fate they were contacted by a florida resident the disgruntled ex-girlfriend of charles stains aka carl hildebrandt the police were just another step closer to catching their man i had a stroke of luck at that time because carla had allegedly been concerned with ripping off a british subject who lived in fort lauderdale she contacted me knowing that i was interested in carl uh which resulted in me talking to a private investigator in america by the name of richard stein uh who was on carl's case if that's the term to use and uh he was feeding me information about carl on a regular basis so i knew that he was using the name charles norman stains step by step brian sutton was getting closer to trapping his quarry as the investigation progressed he discovered over in the usa the fort lauderdale police were well aware of a child stains even if the name carl hildebrandt meant absolutely nothing to them charles stains was a cunning individual he was very calculated in what he did he was very careful what he did carl hildebrandt had inadvertently helped the south yorkshire police over in britain with their quest in may 1997 hildebrandt under his assumed identity charles stains had been arrested he was initially arrested one time under the name charles stains that was for a problem he had with his girlfriend and it was a burglary and a domestic fight he was booked under that name here in fort lauderdale and broward county florida as charles stains later i become to learn through some information that he was really carl hildebrand but carl hildebrandt or charles stains as was known in the usa soon came to the police's attention for a second time the florida police connected him to an intricate and ambitious scam mr stains had experience in the rental car industry had worked in a rental car company for a little while so he knew how the voucher system worked he would counterfeit vouchers and these vouchers were used mostly by travel agents so if a consumer in the uk wanted to go on a trip they would go to their travel agent they would make a reservation for a hotel an airline and a rental car usually at the same time and they would get these vouchers and these vouchers were like cash they would be presented at the counter to the rental car companies here and they would be given a car so what he did is to make a little shortcut for the consumers over there he counterfeited these vouchers he would advertise in the local newspaper there of a discounted rate for rental cars and the person would buy those discounted vouchers use them over here but he was getting to keep the cash in his pocket and the consumer was turning into voucher and getting a car they would use the car for a week ten days they would go back home and a rental car companies never caught on to it right away carl hildebrandt had an opportunity when he went to america to effectively go straight but he didn't take that opportunity rather he took the opportunity that presented itself to him through his car rental company to actually start ripping off yet another big organization i was pretty clever because the rental car companies hadn't caught on to it for a while matter of fact when when a car turns up missing it usually takes them a little while to report it stolen and most of the time by then the tourists that had these cars had returned them and they had given up investigating on it so a lot of them weren't unchecked he actually did get away for it up for about 18 months a lot of con men do believe that they're a cut above the normal person and not just criminals they don't believe they're criminals at all that's a classic trait of con man doesn't believe he or she is an actual criminal because they don't believe that what they're doing is true crime they believe that they're just being smarter than other people and they take and well they wouldn't describe it as taking advantage of other people they would describe it as being smart than the other guy and if he's not smart enough it's that's his lookout now it seems that there must be something intrinsic in this man's personality that makes it okay for him to do this he obviously doesn't view it as morally wrong he knows that it's legally unacceptable but it's okay for him to do that i wonder whether he views himself as maybe a modern day robin hood he takes from the rich and gives to a more deserving cause himself the money was going to good use for him mr hildebrand um liked to be in the social life there were several clubs that he was known to frequent hang out at he had a few girls uh that he kept on on side there but a lot of his time was spent doing his criminal activities in recent and in other areas he was involved in other elements of crime as well so he associated with people in different realms so if he even thought about it consciously he may well have thought well you know i haven't got the the attributes to go straight so so this is the only life i know and i think a lot of con artists do say that that they find that they can't go straight and it's the only life they know so they've got to stick with it with the uk and u.s police both closing in carl hildebrand's days on the run were numbered and with his capture came the sick and devastating revelations of how he succeeded in dodging the police for almost a decade and the answers were to be found in a graveyard in 1990 carl hildebrandt was facing police charges of fraud theft and handling stolen goods at the 11th hour shortly before he stood trial he vanished missing and presumed dead the local uk press crowned him yorkshire's reggie perrin well faking your own death may be the ultimate con from our point of view the story never really died because the police were obviously still actively looking for him and treating him as very much alive well it seems that the decision to move to america and assume a new identity arose out of panic because carl had been caught trying to scam big companies in in britain so for him to then start again in america tells me that there's something intrinsic in this man's personality because con artists have an inability to delay gratification they want what they want now and they want it the easiest possible way without doing the work so for example with mr hildebrant where he came over the united states and had a an opportunity to sort of go straight and live a conventional life he chose not to do that because of those traits while in fort lauderdale carl hildebrand was using the name charles stains and the u.s police had linked him to a number of criminal activities in a twist of fate while the south yorkshire police were uncovering what happened to hildebrandt in the uk over in the usa in 1998 the florida police were searching for him in connection to a car rental scam the fort lauderdale police were on his case a detective by the name of russell's feast eventually arrested him carl was charged with criminal offences in fort lauderdale and remanded to chrome detention center in miami mr stains was arrested by virtue of a set up that we had done we had some informants working that had asked to meet at a certain location and they had invited mr stains or mr hildebrand to meet at that location with this informant too when he arrived we were set up in many different positions with a lot of agents and he was taken down in front of a business without any incident with the carl hildebrand file now reopened in south yorkshire and their attention focused on florida the american and british police began working together so i was told that he was a fugitive from england so the only way to verify that was through his fingerprints so i was able to contact the police in south yorkshire detective sutton we corresponded back and forth eventually he had sent me a copy of carl hildebrand's fingerprints the positive identification came when i sent a certified copy of carl's fingerprints from the date when he was arrested and charged for the original offences to russell's feast in fort lauderdale we took them to our fingerprint examiner here at the broward county sheriff's office and compared them to the previous ones of charles stains that was arrested on his separate burglary charge they put the two together and sure enough we knew we had mr hildebrand mr brian sutton seemed very excited to know that he has finally found the person he's been looking for for a long time and was very eager to provide me with any information any assistance i needed to ensure that this capture was made and that they were able to get their man back and now the u.s and uk police had solved their mystery it was time to let carl hildebrandt in on their discovery well when after i arrested mr stains and i told him that i knew he was carl hildebrand his reaction was wasn't vocal in his words but his expressions told all his he just lowered his head and closed his eyes and and i can see it all in his face that he knew it was over well often con men feel superior and those feelings of superiority may increase the longer that they're able to engage in their scam so when they're caught it may be a crushing experience because they've assumed this new identity and they thought that they pretty much were scot-free with hildebrandt behind bars in the usa the game was up however there was one last piece of the puzzle remaining unanswered where had carl hildebrandt found the identity charles stains an identity that had kept him safely concealed from the british police and into paul's extensive searches well at that time it didn't mean anything except that he was using another name i was able to get the date of birth he was using and the result of that we were able to find out uh that charles norman stains had been a young man born in uh i believe north therapy in humber side who died at age five when he drowned in the river humber and khalid assumed his name but as brian sutton began to probe further the disturbing discoveries kept coming well what we found out was that carl was in possession of two passports because he'd used another one dean anthony perry on a trip to guyana uh in south america we also found out that this young lad perry had also died in uh in humberside at about the same time and it became apparent that he'd probably gone to a cemetery found two young boys who died about the same age that he was gone and obtained birth certificates and then obtained passports and it is as simple as that the idea to take a child's identity from a gravestone comes straight out of the day of the jackal so it's quite possible that he got that idea from a book that he might have had on his bedside table this wasn't the criminal genius at work this is a desperate man [Music] we then went to the passport office in peterborough where we found the original application for the passport by the person who assumed the name of charles norman stains and the passport photograph was carl at the point of which carl hildebrandt stole the dead child's identity he was not thinking of the impact of that upon the child's parents he was thinking about himself and purely about himself i doubt that it would have crossed his mind he just wanted to make an escape to him he probably felt that the child didn't need the name any longer anyway the traits of a good con man um are well there's numerous ones but i think the main one is a complete lack of conscience basically you can't afford to worry about your victims about whether or not you might have hurt them or if you've done something wrong or how they might be feeling the use of the name of charles norman stains providing that boy's parents never found out would not have been a problem to anyone but of course when we were pursuing the uh the offences of the passport offences it was necessary to visit the parents of charles norman stains who were very nice people elderly living in homicide although it was a long time before they clearly were distressed at the thought that we were making this investigation well the family of the person whose identity that he stole were likely very very damaged by what he did it's bad enough to lose a child but when you get that phone call from an investigator or the police that someone has stolen the identity of this child that you loved and lost it's a sense of violation to the very innermost part of your being and such a sense of betrayal that it's very difficult to overcome the family of charles stains would have been immensely affected by the identity of their child effectively being stolen although the child doesn't need that identity any longer because sadly they're dead they would have viewed that name which they carefully chose for their son as very precious to them it would have represented their son who's not physically with them anymore and so to have that stolen would be like having a physical part of themselves removed it'd be tantamount to grave robbery in a letter to this documentary the parents of charles stain said even 40 years on we grieve for our little boy the fact that carl hildebrandt stole his identity is doubly painful as we feel charles's innocence was stolen and he can't rest in peace our son was named after his father and grandfather hildebrandt besmirched the name of the honorable men [Music] the stealing of the names of dead people is the fastest growing identity theft crime in the uk the uk's passport service now holds a database of babies births and deaths dating back to the 1950s so serious is the problem that they have produced a worldwide warning database with a total of 1 000 names of deceased babies whose identities may have been used by fraudsters an initiative called operation wisdom was also launched in 2002 targeting people assuming the identities of dead children within the first two years 255 arrests were made with 50 convictions the home office have also introduced a new system where the 600 000 people who annually apply for first-time adult passports will have to take part in a face-to-face interview this process will be extended to anyone renewing a lost stolen or expired passport by 2009 making it much harder for people to inflict the heartache and suffering that karl hildebrand caused to the stains family what we do know is that uh these passports the two passports that carla lebron obtained were applied for and obtained during the period that he was signed in the bail book at rotherham police station so he was planning flight whilst he was on bail uh it wouldn't have taken too long i mean i know from experience that you can fill that fill the application for me and turn up at the passport office in peterborough and providing you've got the fee and you're prepared to sit and wait it'll issue with the passport there and then by 1999 the long-standing mystery of carl hildebrand's assumed identity and location was finally solved but with carl hildebrandt in u.s custody due to the car rental scam in fort lauderdale the police now had to work out how to get him back on british soil to face the charges that he fed from almost 10 years earlier he stayed in jail for all about a year until his trial date actually came about the judge refused to let him out on any bond he stayed in jail his trial date came and the judge decided to go ahead and release him on a condition that he'd get on a plane immediately to return to england to face charges that were waiting for him there and that was the agreement that was struck between him his attorney and us here now acquitted of the charges in the u.s hildebrand was escorted back to the uk to finally face charges that he had fled from eight years earlier but no one could be prepared for what was to happen when he finally faced justice carl hildebrant's story reads like a bestseller he faked his own death and then stole a dead child's identity to avoid standing trial in 1990 on charges of handling stolen goods and fraud missing and presumed dead carl hildebrand fled the uk and started a secret new life overseas by the time the police found the car in the river humber it's possible that carl had already gone we were not certain because we have no recollection of where he went from into but it could have already gone by then it was almost 10 years after his mysterious disappearance that the police finally caught up with him in the usa carl hildebrand was using the name charles stains but despite the intricate planning to escape justice in the uk on the other side of the world water and reggie perrin was still getting himself into scrapes with the police if mr stains had not engaged in some criminal activity upon coming to the united states um there's a good chance he never would have been caught had he conducted himself in a polite professional manner and done something constructive and real he may be still walking around the streets here in the united states today is mr charles stains the allegation came over that uh he'd been arrested in mobile initially for some sort of car crime they bailed him and he'd done a runner again uh he eventually got arrested by the police at fort lauderdale uh a detective there by the name of russell spies who dealt with him for offences connected with cars was i surprised he was wanted in the uk not really because i i've i've heard so many stories in my 27 years in law enforcement but it was just amazing that i actually got involved in a case like this and it was quite intriguing once i heard the details of what happened over there and i thought well this is going to be a decent case to work and it turned out it was the judge said and agreed with his attorney and our prosecutor that he will be released now only to get on a plane to fly back to england to face the charges that he had to face there with the uk and u.s police working together august 1999 finally saw all their hard work pay off he'd already served about 12 months in custody his time was served and he was brought on airplane back to manchester airport by two officers from chrome detention center carl came back to manchester airport at about 9 30 a.m one morning we went to collect him and bring him back to rotherham police station uh he was perfectly okay he was very friendly and no aggravation whatsoever it wasn't a personal thing between myself and carl but it did close a book as far as the south yorkshire police were concerned because he'd been missing for eight years and we got him back so it was a closure as far as the police are aware it was the first time carl hildebrandt had stepped on british soil in almost a decade now home the family who believed he had drowned when his car was found in the river humber had their son back for somebody who's got a very rich life and has got close attachments to their friends and family the thought of actually faking their own death would be unthinkable i think the fact that carl was able to do this tells you that this is somebody who's got very superficial attachments to other people is maybe very egocentric and really just focused on himself i don't know whether carl ever contacted his mother during the eight years he was on the run but what i do know is that when we did eventually bring him back to rotherham she came and complained that we hadn't informed her that it was we got him and that she still thought he was dead so the suggestion is he'd never contacted his mother or his sister she was very distraught she would have to be a very good actress to convince the police that she was acting and i believe she was genuine she thought he was dead and with rotherham's reggie perrin back in the uk it was time for him to face justice ironically most of the previous charges that he had spent so much effort and energy evading were dropped carl hildebrandt was charged with theft passport offenses perverting the course of justice and failure to answer bail when we got him back a decision was made by the crown prosecution service that they could not proceed with the original offences of theft of the czechs the law had changed during the eight years and it was now apparently not possible to steal paper checks so they decided not to proceed with that all the handling of the krugerrands so the offences carl was recharged with were the theft of the mercedes the passport offenses failing to answer bail and perverting the course of justice the perversion was that he'd faked his death and led people to believe that he wasn't ever going to be able to appear at court because he was dead in april 2000 eight months after returning to the uk carl hildebrand stood trial facing eight criminal charges although the prosecution did not pursue the charge of perverting the course of justice at the trial the judge peter baker described the case as a fascinating and bizarre story he said that hildebrand's story read more like a novel than a criminal case carl hildebrant's mother said we'll all be happy when it comes to an end it's gone on too long after disappearing in 1990 leaving his friends and family to believe he had been lost to the river humber in northern england it is thought that hildebrandt spent time in south africa before setting up residency in the usa and after running from the charges facing him in south yorkshire for almost a decade carl hildebrand was eventually sentenced to just 15 months in prison a local newspaper commented he need never have fled having served his time he is now free and living in the uk but the impact of the con which draws parallels to frederick forsyth the day of the jackal and the famous sitcom the rise and fall of reginald perrin he will long be remembered these might have been the actions of a desperate man who was looking at a possible jail term and desperately wanted to make his escape but he never at any point in the 10 years that he was living under an assumed identity tried to get in contact with his family to actually put that right [Music] i've never come across a faking of death and obtaining passports by deception before during my career and i would say that it's not a common crime although not too difficult to do and what what is also the case is that these two passports have never been recovered for somebody to live on the run for so long i think you'd have to say that yeah he's a successful con man in my opinion carl hildebrand is an excellent con man carl hildebrant was a cunning individual he was very calculated in what he did he was very careful what he did but like anybody else they always make a mistake here and a mistake there and it always catches up to him but i think he was clever he was very witty there was no question about it he was savve he liked to play with the women a lot and get around but eventually bad people always get caught and that's our job to find them

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 173,284

Keywords: British crime, Conman Case Files, Ponzi schemes, Real Crime, cold cases investigation, con artists, crime analysis, crime documentary series, crime prevention, crime reporting, crime statistics analysis, crime-solving techniques, criminal activities, criminal investigations, criminal justice system, criminal profiling, criminal scams, elaborate hoaxes, notorious conmen, true crime storytelling, unsolved crimes

Id: rqVcupvgqR0

Length: 48min 15sec (2895 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 22 2022