‘How I was duped by French conman who claimed he was British MI6 spy’
The crook, who has lied, scammed, and deceived people for decades, also said he was a Scottish lord
Frenchman Alain Jollois has claimed, among other identities, to be working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6)Victor Moussa / Shutterstock
The former partner of a notorious French conman who convinced people he was a British spy has spoken out about how she was duped by the now-60-year-old.
Rosie, whose name has been changed, spoke to Sud Ouest about how she met and briefly partnered Alain Jollois, who has been known as Andrew McGregor and Alan Fraser of Lovat over the past 20 to 30 years, among other names.
Mr Jollois met Rosie, who is from Paris, online in December 2023.
“He came to my house to cook,” she said, although she was initially vexed at the fact that he did not help buy the food, “and did not even bring a bottle of wine” with him.
However, she enjoyed spending time with him. “He is funny, charismatic, good-natured, and cheerful. I was impressed by his level of culture, and phenomenal memory,” she said.
He told her he was a Scottish spy for MI6, and heir to a family of Scottish lords.
She only discovered his real identity during a visit to him in hospital, when she saw his real name and genuine French social security number. The ‘Scottish lord’ was in fact Mr Jollois, who was born on January 23, 1964, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris.
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“What's more, when I heard him speaking on the phone in English, I noticed that he didn't have a real British accent,” Rosie laughs. “He was quite offended [when I told him]!”
The man tried to convince her that ‘Alain Jollois’ was a fake name he had been given by MI6 to cover his real identity, but Rosie was no longer under his spell.
“My dear Alain, this isn’t going to work,” she told him.
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Rosie has fond memories of the conman, despite his stories, and has taken a compassionate view of her former partner.
“He really believes in it,” she said. “As far as I'm concerned, he's ill, incurable, and can only survive by fooling people. He is now virtually homeless. I feel sad for him.”
Thankfully, she did not transfer any money or property to him, so was able to make a clean break. Not all of his victims have been so lucky.
The scale of the conman’s deception runs very deep.
Sylvie, an Ain resident and teacher, met Mr Jollois and was also taken in by his tale of being a Scottish spy. She was even persuaded to pay him €80,000 “to help him bring [40 members of] his family from Scotland to France” in a months-long deception, she said.
She believed she was truly helping him and doing the right thing, she said.
She was “mystified” when his real identity and deception was revealed, but she was unable to press any charges, as Mr Jollois had been “clever enough to stay on the right side of legality”, she said.
Another woman, Alice, also met ‘Lord Andrew’ on a dating website, this time in 2021, again in Paris. Alice would go on to be seriously deceived, and rack up tens of thousands of euros of debt as a result of the conman.
He told her he was a former student of Umberto Eco in Bologna, was stationed in Paris for NATO, but worked for the British Crown and knew Queen Elizabeth II personally.
He then told her he was a top agent for MI6, and had undertaken secret missions in Lebanon and Yemen. His wife, Sylvie, had died after she was poisoned during a mission in the Jura, he said.
Alice remembers a “brilliant man”, who “told anecdote after anecdote”.
One of his ‘associates’, apparently called John Townsend, signed his messages Brigadier Sir John Townsend, K.C.B., K.B.E. (Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and the British Empire), and told Alice that she could take a military plane as part of a mission, but would have the code name ‘Lynx’. Andrew’s code name was ‘Pollux’.
Mr Jollois showed Alice ‘a photo of Mr Townsend’ wearing a traditional Scottish kilt. The photo was later revealed to have been copied from a kilt auction house website.
Alice began to have suspicions when Andrew did not pick up his phone on the day of the supposed flight, and later said the trip had been cancelled due to John having severe health problems (yet, he could not be visited because of Covid-19 protocols).
Alice sent Andrew the following text on April 14: "Mythomania is a psychiatric disease that can be cured. You should see a doctor as soon as possible, dear Lord Andrew, friend of Her Majesty."
Andrew became angry, said she had “doubted Her Majesty’s army”, and said he would make a report. He then sent messages everyday. Alice reported him to the police, but they dismissed her claims of being ‘bugged’.
Through ‘John’, Mr Jollois told Alice that Lord Andrew was incredibly intelligent with an IQ above that of Albert Einstein, was nicknamed “my jewel” by Queen Elizabeth II, and was respected by leaders including Barack Obama.
Mr Jollois also had credit cards in his Scottish name, but always seemed to struggle with money, Alice said.
Andrew was fluent in French, English, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew and Mandarin; to a level which convinced those who genuinely spoke these languages - for example, at a Chinese restaurant.
He later moved into Alice’s parents’ old house in Brittany, and hired a builder to remodel the kitchen for a quoted price of €33,000. Building began after Alice advanced the builder €4,000 for materials, but Andrew promised to pay Alice back. She has, of course, never received any money.
Andrew’s stories continued and became increasingly outlandish: the two were supposed to go to Edinburgh with some Albanian friends, but the helicopter that was supposed to take them was stopped from entering France, Andrew said.
He then told Alice that he had a ‘cousin’ who looked extremely similar to him, and no-one had noticed when ‘John’ had placed this cousin with the Albanians to trick them, while the real Andrew had been in a coma.
Alice finally saw through his tales when she found a passport in the name of Alain Jollois, and discovered that he was receiving state benefits. She also discovered that Sylvie was not dead, but was another of his victims.
Alice again went to the police, who arrested Alain on April 20, 2022. However, he was quickly released and fled. Alice was so incensed, she has now set up an association to help fraud and conman victims.
A long list of scams
Mr Jollois’ many tricks are said to date back to the mid-1980s.
He pretended to be an emissary of President Mitterand, which eventually landed him in prison for 18 months (six suspended) for fraud, dining without paying, and for impersonating a public servant.
He went to prison for fraud again in 1992, 1997, and 1999, but his conning continued. He pretended to be a senior officer in Saint-Malo, and lived with a poorer man who he had promised a job as a ‘butler’. He later scammed the man out of up to €18,000, he admitted in court.
In 2002, Mr Jollois pretended to be a Scottish filmmaker, and widely promised to “bring Julia Roberts” to the Dordogne region to star in one of his films. He managed to deceive the local council to let him film in streets, and persuaded restaurants and wine merchants to provide goods for the project.
He even scammed a local retired military officer to pay more than €30,000 to “welcome” Ms Roberts, including hiring hotel rooms, houses, and cars, and said everything was backed by prestigious New York law firm Cohen & Cohen, and his account with the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Mr Jollois even waited all day with everyone to “welcome the private jet” that never arrived. Later, the military officer realised that the cheque he had been given had bounced. The jig was up.
For this set of stories and scams, Mr Jollois was sentenced to 36 months in prison (18 suspended), but continued to maintain he had not lied, even during the trial. When he tried to appeal, his sentence was doubled. Yet, he continued to claim his stories were true, even when directly questioned by the judge.
Mr Jollois was later given six months in prison for fraud and theft in 2007, and continues to maintain he is an MI6 officer to this day, offering victims supposed real-life contracts and documents to ‘prove’ the reality of his fabricated stories.
Other tales include attempting to scam a Scottish tea company out of €3 million of products, duping pharmacists and doctors out of medication for his various apparent health conditions, ‘borrowing’ Champagne regularly before ‘meetings’ with then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls, and sharing emails and WhatsApps ‘from numerous friends, cousins and work associates’ daily.
"I was in contact with ‘his family’,” said Sylvie. “There was John; his daughter Helen; his cousins Angus and Duncan; and Charles, his private secretary.” But Sylvie only ever saw photos of these so-called associates, and never met them in real life.
The career liar has also variously claimed to have attended the École Normale Supérieure, studied history at Cambridge, law at Yale, and oenology at Dijon.
‘A very poor grasp on reality’
A psychiatrist questioned during one of Mr Jollois’ trials said that the man has a “very poor” grasp on reality, and “believes in his own stories." His personality is “psychopathic”, he said, “with a mythomaniac and fantasist process, a large imaginative world, certain intellectual capacities, a rather defective moral sense”.
Mr Jollois, who is thought to be claiming RSA (Revenu de solidarité active) under his real name, has claimed to Le Monde - when investigative reporters found him - that he is suffering from multiple severe illnesses, and living at a hospital near the Swiss border.
He said that he has been “a scapegoat” and that his biggest scams “have no victims” because they did not make money.
He said that it had been “interesting to have all these adventures”, and quoted two famous figures when interviewed, including “never complain, never explain” (Benjamin Disraeli) and “My only regret is not being someone else” (Woody Allen).
