Self-styled lord jailed after world-record heist bid

A SELF-STYLED lord was jailed for eight years yesterday for his part in a “bold and sophisticated” bid to pull off the world’s biggest theft.

Hugh Rodley, whose aristocratic pretensions were based on a manorial title, teamed up with a gang of international cyber raiders targeting a £229 million (€254m) Japanese bank fortune.

Rodley, branded by the judge as the “chief executive” of the scam, presided over a complicated array of overseas front companies and accounts to launder the hoped-for fortune, London’s Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.