Mark Acklom is a con artist and cunning sociopath who has been a stealing con artist for over 30 years. He traveled across Europe, bewitching and betraying countless strangers, even his own family. The riveting documentary Conman: The Life and Crimes of Mark Akerom examines his methods of deceit and the shattered lives of the victims he left behind.
Acklom started committing crimes early on. The boarding school failed to stop his misconduct. He misrepresents his apparent intelligence to make a profitable living of cheating. In her first TV interview, his mother Diana spoke of the first signs of stress and her repeated attempts to curb his criminal path. After getting out of prison at a young age, he became smarter and elusive at evading law enforcement scrutiny.
His victims may have numbered in the hundreds. Under the guise of decency and various aliases, he charms the unsuspecting. By the end of each scam, many victims were penniless, homeless and abandoned by their spouses.
His allure is palpable. Carolyn Woods knows this well. In the film, she talks about her intimate relationship with Acklom, his complex and seductive courtship techniques, and how she ends up falling deeply in love with him. His attraction is so strong that she believes all his lies without a doubt and ends up giving him her life savings based on complex lies he has fabricated about real estate ownership.
Conman: The life and crimes of Mark Acklom is not your typical passive summary of a true crime story. Sky News crime reporter Martin Brunt does have a driving impact on the narrative as he tries to track down Acklom and end his reign of destruction. It was a cat-and-mouse game that went on for more than four years. In doing so, the filmmakers discover a path of interconnected threads and increasingly outlandish contradictions against individuals, corporations and institutions. It’s a fascinating and exciting journey that culminates in a surprising conclusion.
