Convicted fraudster Gill Hope found living in Cleobury Mortimer

Jun 7 2009 by Adam Aspinall, Sunday Mercury

And in November we revealed how she was being investigated by US authorities after allegedly trying to rip-off the heroes of 9/11 in an £80million scam.

Ex-New York fireman Vincent Forras, who worked at Ground Zero, claimed Hope contacted him via social networking site Facebook.

The brave firefighter now battles for compensation for emergency workers who suffered health problems in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. He said Hope offered his charity £80million if it could raise the same amount and allow her access to their finances – but he pulled out after reading our previous stories on-line.

Hope was also arrested in Uganda, Africa, in January after she failed to pay a £3,000 hotel bill. She had claimed she was in the country to build 283 villages for 1.7 million orphans.

Yet when our reporter quizzed her about what her charity had achieved she said: “I don’t have anything to show for my charity work yet because that is not what I do.

‘‘It is not about bricks and mortar, I am about info-structures, and at the moment they are in the process of being set-up.

“Everyone who has ever made a complaint against me is nothing but a naysayer, I have done nothing wrong, and never will.

“But people like me, like Rosa Parks, we just get on the phone and put things right.

“I am determined to continue my work on Africa and am determined to change the lives of 13 million Aids orphans.

“What I was jailed for would not even get a prison sentence these days, millions of firms are in the same position I was back then.”

We have passed on the details of our meeting with Gill Hope to officials at the Insolvency Service of the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, which replaced the Department of Trade and Industry.

It is now investigating.