Fugitive fraudster who spent 13 years on the run after fleeing to France then the US after swindling £70,000 out of victims is jailed
Duncan Herd, 60, was originally locked up in 2010 after swindling £70,000 from his victims in a scam in which he took down payments for non-existent yachts or land abroad.
By JAKE HOLDEN, UK NEWS REPORTER
Published: 12:42 GMT, 4 January 2026 | Updated: 12:58 GMT, 4 January 2026
A prolific fraudster who went on the run for 13 years after fleeing to France and then the US has finally been jailed.
He has been sentenced to 20 weeks after authorities caught up to him in America.
Duncan Herd, 60, was originally locked up in 2010 after swindling £70,000 from his victims in a scam in which he took down payments for non-existent yachts or land abroad.
He was released in November 2011 after serving half of his 39 month sentence but recalled to prison in June 2012 for breaching his licence conditions.
But instead of being put back behind bars, Mr Herd vanished.
He evaded capture for over a decade but was finally detained by US police and extradited back to the UK last month.
He was arrested on his arrival at Heathrow Airport on December 14.
Mr Herd, of Cerne Abbas, Dorset, was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison at Poole Magistrates' Court for remaining unlawfully at large after recall to prison.
Duncan Herd, 60, was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison after going on the run for 13 years in France and America
Even before he was initially locked up in 2010, Mr Herd had tried to escape justice by absconding to France after he cheated victims out of vast amounts of money.
One of his victims was Thomas Congdon, who he met in London in 2004.
He manipulated him into handing over £11,725 to secure a yacht moored in Egypt. Mr Herd claimed they would then sell the yacht and split the profits.
But, of course, there was no yacht in Egypt and Mr Congdon never saw a return on his extravagant investment.
In another con, Mr Herd met yacht broker Gerald Vincent Greenaway, a man in his 80s, in Swindon.
He swindled him out of £18,119 using the same trick - offering to split to profits on the sale of a non-existent yacht if he funded its transport back to the UK.
He got his biggest sum from a mother and her son in Norfolk after he met Wendy Thorley there in 2005.
She and her son Jason handed over a total of £21,600 after Mr Herd said there was a land investment deal in Egypt they could get in on.
He lied and said he had already put in £37,000 of his own money to the plot but with the Thorley's funding they could secure the land and then make up the £8million through development.
The deal failed to materialise, as did Mr Herd who disappeared from contact with the Thorleys after August 2007 and was unable to be tracked down.
Mr Herd also admitted grifting a Weymouth builder Grant Baker out of £17,000 with a false promise investment in a development project and claims he could secure a 36-foot yacht.