SECURITAS robber Sean Lupton continues to “live it up” in Kyrenia, despite British and Turkish Cypriot police attempts to find him, Lupton’s wife Therese has said.
Speaking to Britain’s Daily Mail over the weekend, Lupton’s embittered wife said she had been shown evidence by the British police that proved “beyond any doubt” that Lupton was alive and well and living in the north.
“I know for certain he is alive. He is swanning around in Cyprus, living the high life with a mountain of cash,” she said, adding: “They [the UK police] showed me photographs of people connected to him, where Sean has been, what he has been doing — including spending a lot of time in casinos and visiting prostitutes”.
British police have been searching for 47-year-old Lupton since he disappeared after being made a suspect in the record-breaking 2006 Securitas heist that saw robbers make off with £53 million stolen from a Securitas warehouse in Kent.
Five of Lupton’s accomplices were jailed for their parts in the raid in January, but Lupton, the UK police believe, escaped to northern Cyprus with around £32 million worth of cash. The police say they have evidence that Lupton used his mobile phone to make calls to northern Cyprus hours after the heist, and that mobile phone calls were also later made by him in Kyrenia.
A spokesman for Detective Chief Inspector Mick Judge, who leads the search for Lupton, told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that “Kent police believe Sean Lupton was in northern Cyprus earlier in the year and that enquiries are continuing”.
The spokesman refused to say, however, whether the police had evidence that Lupton was on the island.
A spokesman for the Turkish Cypriot police said they are also still looking for Lupton.
Earlier in the year Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat promised that Lupton would be extradited to the UK if found in the north. Other Turkish Cypriot officials have, however, insisted that Lupton was not living there and that the breakaway state was no longer a safe haven for criminals.
Although Lupton’s wife had initially believed her fugitive husband dead, she now says she is convinced British police know the exact whereabouts of her now-estranged husband, but that they are waiting for the right time to make a move to arrest him.
Delays in making an arrest are exacerbated by the absence of extradition laws between the north and Britain. It is known, however, that there has been some co-operation on the case between police in the north and the UK.
“They [the British police] went into a great deal of detail about the extradition process and the importance of getting a water-tight case. They will have only one chance at getting him so they don’t want to blow it,” Theresa Lupton said.
Lupton’s estranged wife says she is bitter about what her husband has done, and that she will do all she can to see him behind bars.
“I have made a statement for the first time and have told the police that I will do anything to help – including giving evidence against him,” she said, and added, “I have absolutely no feelings for him whatsoever. I now know beyond any doubt that he is alive but he may as well be dead”.
Theresa Lupton is particularly bitter that the fugitive abandoned his children, leaving them to believe that he was dead.
“They are devastated, sick that he should make them think he was dead”.
She is also embittered by the belief that Lupton is living on the spoils of the Securitas robbery while say says she lives on unemployment benefits of just £60 per week.
