Fool’s gold: How Stuart Hughes tricked the global press
This is the man who has tricked some of the biggest global news organisations into running fake stories about the world’s most expensive homes, yachts and cars.
Hundreds of stories about fantastic gold products manufactured by Stuart Hughes have appeared in respected publications over the last 4 years.
He has previously been praised for; selling a gold iPhone to Victoria Beckham, selling the world’s most expensive house ($12.2bn) and flogging a gold yacht that would have been too heavy to float.
This week his latest fantastic product, a £5million gold and ammolite iPad with dinosaur bones, has been covered by at least 77 newsrooms including; Sky News, Daily Mail, Discovery News, Gawker, Perez Hilton and MSN Money.
I can now reveal that the supposed international gold and diamond dealer Stuart Hughes is a father of two who lives alone in a modest apartment in Merseyside, Liverpool and regularly moans about the state of his finances.
Stuart runs two websites filled with gold and diamond plated tat costing millions of pounds with pages and pages of international news clippings featuring his fantastic products going back over 4 years.
However, almost all of the images are computer generated and Photoshopped, with few actual pictures of the real life products - something many media outlets have failed to notice.
Last night when confronted with information I had gathered about the real state of his finances Stuart confessed that he had made up the stories about selling the world’s most expensive house and yacht.
However, he insists the gold iPad with T-rex bones is real and is being kept somewhere in Russia so is unable to show it to me. His story appeared to fall down when asked about the source of his T-rex bones.
He explained: “(I source them in) Arizona…they’re not rare, well they are rare but you can pick these fossils off Southport beach, you know what I mean?”
More recently Stuart has claimed to have entered a business partnership with minor celeb Jo-Emma Larvin, following difficulties with his former partner.
However, last night Stuart confessed the pair had never met but swore she had agreed to have her name and image associated with his products.
Asked why he would bother to place such obviously fake stories in the press he claimed “I’m just trying to make a wage here” – although he failed to explain what part of his business he was making money from.
When asked why a man who carries out some of the biggest gold and diamond transactions in the world has trouble paying his car insurance and needs to return pegs to the shop for a refund he proved evasive.
He swears his business is legitimate but was unwilling to discuss how much money it generates.
He claims the media are often aware that he is telling tall tales but are more interested in getting a good story.
“This is how I work…I keep things real, I buy second hand, I drive a Bentley,” he explains.
“I was on NBC last night, its just a wow factor, they don’t believe it but guess what – it sells their…I get personally on average about 20-25 requests from all the glossy magazines.”
“It sells their gear, that’s what it does.”
Stuart was equally evasive about the source of the pictures on his website and when asked to produce some real pictures emailed me a picture of a bmx spraypainted gold.
Previously his business was put under serious scrutiny by The Age, emails posted to the website of Computer Choppers seemed to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his images and his gold yacht was claimed to be a hoax.
A page on Stuart’s website offers members of the public a chance to become part of his franchise explaining; “Once the initial start up fee is paid, there are no further payments due to Goldstriker or Stuart Hughes.”
It is not currently known how many people, if any, have signed up to be part of Stuart’s business.
I have the tapes, documents, pictures, etc. to stand this story up. If you want to correct your stories with this information feel free to make contact.
