Net closes on £32million Securitas thief 'seen in Turkish Cyprus'

British detectives raided addresses across Northern Cyprus yesterday as the net closed on the man suspected of fleeing with up to £32million from the Securitas robbery in Kent.

They believe Sean Lupton, 47, may be hiding in a mountain village near the harbour town of Kyrenia where, according to what officers call "highly credible intelligence", he has made high-spending visits to casinos and nightclubs.

"The police have been told that he has been rather injudiciously splashing his money around," said a source. "He can't stop himself spending, apparently, and has also been picking up a lot of prostitutes from clubs on the island."

The Mail on Sunday understands that detectives have also established that Lupton's mobile phone has been used many times a few miles from Kyrenia – and that the same device was used to call numbers in Northern Cyprus within an hour of Britain's biggest cash robbery.

Last night it was reported that Northern Cyprus's president Mehmet Ali Talat had given his personal assurance that Lupton would be deported if found.

The tiny republic – the Turkish section of the island – has no extradition agreement with Britain and is not, except by Turkey, recognised by the international community.

But in a politically unprecedented move, President Talat agreed to give his full co-operation to Kent Police following the intervention of British peer Lord Ahmed, who flew out for secret talks with him last week and remained in Cyprus to co-ordinate the police search.

Scroll down for more

Until now British officers have been unable to carry out inquiries in the North because of its status, although they did give local officers a briefing about the case last year.

Five men were jailed at the Old Bailey in January for the raid at the Securitas depot in Tonbridge. The robbers kidnapped depot manager Colin Dixon and his wife and child before stealing £53million in February 2006.

But Lupton, a builder who is married with two teenage children, vanished later that year while on bail after being questioned about the robbery a month earlier. He was last seen in Britain in Capel-le-Ferne near Folkestone and police believe he went by ferry to France.

Officers told his wife Therese, who is convinced her husband was murdered by the raid's mastermind on the day he disappeared, that he was spotted by chance by an old schoolfriend while watching football in a Paris bar.

It is believed Lupton, a former boxing instructor from Whitstable, Kent, then travelled to Cyprus using a false passport and with suitcases of cash.

Three officers from Kent Police, including Detective Chief Inspector Mick Judge who led the inquiry, and one from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, searched houses, nightclubs and casinos on the island yesterday. They will continue their inquiries today.

Sources said the background to the operation had been beset by diplomatic difficulties.

Scroll down for more

It is understood the Foreign Office was uneasy about it and insisted an official from the British High Commission in Nicosia attend a meeting in the city between Kent Police and the Chief of Police in Northern Cyprus, Gunay Ozan.

The British detectives, who stayed in the south of the island in £175-a-night rooms at the Hilton Hotel in Nicosia, were helped during the raids by local officers who have been instructed to arrest Lupton on sight.

There have been many sightings of the fugitive, mainly around Kyrenia and Famagusta, both popular with British tourists. Only £21million of the stolen £53million has been recovered and a worldwide hunt for the missing cash and at least 16 fugitivies has led detectives to Cyprus, Morocco, Albania and the West Indies.

Earlier this year a taxi driver said he was paid to help smuggle Lupton into Northern Cyprus from the Greek-controlled South, along with Turkish Cypriot brothers Hussein and Mustafa Basar – also on the run for their part in the raid.

Police have dismissed his story but are treating sightings earlier this year, particularly those in the mountain village of Catalkoy, near Kyrenia, as credible. Builder Turgay Adyin said: "I saw him drinking in Catalkoy in the English bars – he's pretty stocky and looks like every other expat, apart from his funny eye.

"He was careful to make sure he was never out and about too much but I know he was being looked after because there were always people with him."

One police theory is that Lupton may be under the protection of a major international crime gang.

His wife remains unconvinced, however. In an exclusive interview with the Mail on Sunday earlier this year she said she believed he was most likely killed in a row over the spoils from the raid, after being summoned to a meeting with a dangerous criminal – a man she called Mr X.

"Even if I was wrong and he was to ring up and ask me to come and join him, there is no way I would go," she said at the time.

"I don't believe in living off crime. It sickens me to think he was involved. I have always lived a quiet, law-abiding life and that is what I will continue to do."

Last night Lord Ahmed would not comment on the case. It was his behind-the-scenes diplomacy that was instrumental in securing the release of Gillian Gibbons, the teacher jailed in Sudan for letting her class name a teddy bear Mohammed.