Lies spies and a poisonous divorce

Spies, lies – and a poisonous divorce battle
June 7, 2011
She accused her estranged husband of stealing Ikos’s software trading secrets
in order to set up a rival hedge fund in Monaco, where he lives with his
24-year-old Brazilian girlfriend.

And as she sought to prove her suspicion by allegedly having one of their
former marital homes, in Steyning, bugged – along with his Aston Martin
sports car – the story had all the ingredients of a blockbusting Hollywood
thriller.

Until, that is, one of the world’s leading detective agencies allegedly
bungled its role in the operation so spectacularly that the slick Brad Pitt
and Angelina Jolie nail-biter degenerated into an Ealing Comedy with
Alastair Sim.

For, according to court documents, as the private investigators at detective
firm Kroll – motto: “When you need to know, call Kroll” – installed covert
listening and filming devices on behalf of the hedge-fund tycoon, they were
said to have made the schoolboy error of leaving behind a home movie of
their actions. Their movements and conversation were allegedly captured on
the very equipment they were hiding, which was triggered by infrared motion
monitors. This was discovered by the private investigators called in by
Coward (enter burly men in suits with flashlights) to sweep the house for
just such devices.

A similar sweep of the garage was said to have uncovered a GPS tracking device
on Coward’s car. Now his team has filed legal papers to find out the full
extent of the spying activities.

“The whole legal issue of installing CCTV in a property is a grey one,” says
Tony Smith of Insight Investigations, which has offices all over Britain.
“As long as the client has some right of ownership over a property you can
go ahead, but if it’s someone else’s property it’s a tricky route to go down
– although that sort of thing does go on.”

Smith says that this case is bound to see a rise in the number of people
asking to sweep their home for bugging devices.

“People are a bit paranoid about bugs, without much justification. For every
20 homes we sweep, there might be one that had surveillance equipment.”

Concern over sexual rather than financial fidelity is the foremost reason why
clients approach detective agencies. But agencies have their own rules.

“If we install cameras, we never go beyond the bathroom door,” Smith
emphasises. “We also prefer not to go inside the bedroom. Clients will ask
to have a camera trained on the bed, but if a couple are recorded entering
the bedroom at 10am and not emerging until 4pm, it’s obvious what they’ve
been up to.”

But let the cameras cut back to Ambrosiadou. Relations with her spouse reached
a low point when he borrowed the private Cessna in order to fly from Nice to
Greece; on his return, he claimed he was stopped by police and forced to
hand over the keys after his wife alleged he was using it unlawfully.

Meanwhile, according to one ex-employee, before Ambrosiadou started monitoring
her husband, she mounted a large-scale surveillance campaign against her
former staff.

In court papers, Tobin “Sam” Gover, a former money manager at Ikos who was
employed by Coward and later sacked by Ambrosiadou, claims he was spied on
by Laura Maria Van Egmond, a glamorous undercover agent (close-up of pouting
Mata Hari) who moved into a flat in the seafront apartment block in
Limassol, Cyprus, where he lived with his wife.

The woman was, in fact, Laura Merts, a Dutch spy, who was trained in “unarmed
combat” and “counter-terrorism”. She “went out of her way” to befriend the
pair and became a trusted family friend, spending Christmas with them and
often looking after their young son.

According to the legal papers, Mr Gover says he discovered the campaign to
extract “confidential and private information” in November 2009 when he
found out, from an internet profile, that Merts had been “engaged in covert
close protection and undercover investigation” while she was in contact with
the couple.

The High Court gave a default judgment in favour of Gover after Ambrosiadou
filed no defence, and she then agreed to pay damages.

Now the action sweeps back to Britain, where Coward is suing Ambrosiadou for
spying and harassment. He claims his privacy has been breached, along with
his human rights. Court papers state that the bugs “recorded a long
conversation between the claimant and his mother in the study, in which they
discussed a number of highly private confidential and sensitive issues,
including issues concerning the claimant’s business plans, investments and
tax affairs”.

He also claims that another agency was hired by Ambrosiadou to spy on him in
(whoosh! jump-cut to) Monaco and while he was on (whoosh! back to) Cyprus.

According to Eamon Javers, a Washington correspondent for CNBC and author of
Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage, London
is the global crossroads of the blue-chip espionage industry.

“When I was researching my book, I met a lot of ex-British Special Forces
operatives who had been in Iraq and Afghanistan and who were working in
surveillance for UK executives,” says Javers.

“There is so much money at stake that everyone is spying on everybody else. We
live in an information age where data is money. If you get more data than
the next guy, you have the edge.”

Technology, once the sole preserve of government intelligence agencies, is
considered a legitimate business tool by FTSE 100 companies fighting for
supremacy.

“Espionage doesn’t just happen in movies. It wouldn’t surprise me if the same
techniques spill over into executives’ private lives.”

And so our gaze returns to the conflict between Ambrosiadou and Coward. He has
made a series of damaging allegations about her stewardship of Ikos, giving
investors more than a touch of heartburn and resulting in a scenario
reminiscent of Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in The War of The Roses.
For its part, the investigation agency Kroll refuses to be drawn on its
alleged involvement.

“As a general policy, we do not disclose the identities of our clients or
comment on individual client matters,” it states crisply. “Nor do we comment
on matters which are subject to ongoing litigation.”

What the dramatic denouement will be remains to be seen. Ambrosiadou is
divorcing her husband, which will doubtless be a major production,
especially if the 300ft Maltese Falcon is subject to a tug-of-love custody
battle. So hang on to your popcorn; it will make for a gripping sequel.