Convicted fraudster Wayne Eaglesome who goes by many names including Alexander Newman and Alex De Villiers, was first protographed here in 2015. Photo / Dean Purcell
Convicted fraudster Wayne Eaglesome who goes by many names including Alexander Newman and Alex De Villiers, was first protographed here in 2015. Photo / Dean Purcell
A notorious Kiwi conman’s reputation has preceded him after residents at a Prague hostel, hearing his tales of high status and crypto wealth, realised the man and his motormouth were infamous.
Last month travellers at the Luma Terra hostel in Prague – whose website says it “aims to create anunforgettable experience” – were entertained by a fellow guest calling himself “James” who spoke with a plummy English accent and claimed to be a German-based cryptocurrency lawyer who worked for giant investment firm BlackRock.
One traveller told the Herald: “It was quite the encounter”. “The guy had more self-confidence and an ability to entertain than anyone I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“James” claimed to have been born in the United States, but grew up in England where he attended Eton and Oxford and had tens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin.
When asked why with such wealth he was slumming it in student hostels, he is said to have responded: “I like the hostel vibe”.
“He then said he owned three hostels in Thailand where every guest gets given a [Marijuana]joint on arrival. It was insane. He literally had a story about every single topic you could imagine,” the traveller said.
Fortunately for guests at Luma Terra, someone present had travelled through New Zealand over the past few years and recalled headlines that helped unmask the true identity of “James”. A Herald article included a picture that confirmed the man sitting around the hotel table having beers with his new friends was actually the man more commonly known as Wayne Eaglesome.
The jaunt by “James” in the capital of the Czech Republic is merely one more leg on a world tour seemingly being conducted by Eaglesome, who fled New Zealand in 2021 after using more than 40 aliases over the past few decades to rack up more than 250 convictions and several prison sentences.
Notorious conman Wayne Eaglesome, in striped t-shirt, has re-emerged in Prague. Supplied
Even when behind bars Eaglesome seemed incorrigible. Parole reports, recommending against early release, described him as a “narcissist” and “prolific high-risk confidence man”. While imprisoned he was accused of attempting to impersonate a Corrections officer and taught his fellow inmates how to legally change their names.
At his most recent sentencing, in 2019 at the Christchurch District Court, Eaglesome – then with the legal name of Alex Oliver Bergen – was described by the judge as an “inveterate fraud” who “lives the life of a conman”.
He left the country in 2021 while facing more charges, this time for breaching parole conditions.
Herald reporting over the past few years has placed him and his tall tales in Spain and Germany, as well as claims he had passed through Laos, Thailand, China and Morocco.
Days after the Herald published the first pictures of him in 2015, Eaglesome dyed his hair blonde and left Auckland for Christchurch, where he went on to develop multiple new identities and rack up more convictions after converting rental properties into illegal accommodation providers and running up tens of thousands of dollars in bad debts.
During his most notorious stretch of fraud, in 2003, he racked up $2000 in hotel bills in Auckland as “Ari Ben Yitzhak” and stole cellphones in Queenstown while pretending to be “Doctor Angus Harrow”. He was arrested as “Father Antony Garibaldi”, having talked his way into clerical vestments at a church by claiming to be a travelling priest whose luggage had been lost in transit.
He was also jailed for five years in 2006 after being convicted of sexually violating and indecently assaulting an 18-year-old backpacker.
Messages sent to Eaglesome, using the phone number “James” has recently been corresponding to fellow travellers with, went unanswered this week.
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.
