great vanashing acts

* In 1967, the Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt, disappeared after diving into the sea near Melbourne. He was considered a strong swimmer and his body was never found, leading to theories that he'd faked his death. The most outlandish explanation came in 1983, when the British journalist Anthony Grey suggested in his book The Prime Minister Was a Spy that Holt was a Chinese spy and had been spirited off to Beijing in a submarine.

*John Stonehouse, a Labour MP, disappeared in 1974, leaving just a pile of clothes on a Miami beach. In fact, he'd gone to Australia with his mistress. He hit the headlines again later that year when, after his capture in Melbourne, police thought they'd collared Lord Lucan.

*A life-insurance scam went tragically wrong for American businessman William Stewart in 1985, when he died after driving his rented car into a lake near Lucerne, Switzerland. Stewart's carefully planned "suicide" was thwarted by the car's childproof locks. Trapped, he drowned.

*Perhaps canoeist John Darwin was inspired by British businessman Paul Early, who in 1992, apparently inspired by Frederick Forsyth's novel The Day of the Jackal, faked his death at sea and used a dead man's identity to slip into France. Early was caught hiding in a hole in the floor under his bed after returning to Britain to be with his wife, who, like Anne Darwin, was in on the plan.

*Moana Pozzi, Italian porn star, was reported to have died of cancer in France in 1994. In 2005, an inquiry was opened in Rome as rumours persisted that her "death" was a sham to cover up links to a top politician, but its findings were inconclusive.

*In 1999, Karl Hackett tried to pretend he'd been killed in the Paddington rail disaster. His cousin revealed his new identity to police, and he was given a suspended prison sentence in 2000.

*Hong Kong resident Steven Chin Leung was arrested by US marshals in 2002 after it emerged that he'd fabricated his own death in the chaos of the September 11 World Trade Centre attacks. He was caught trying to obtain his own death certificate, posing as his (non-existent) brother.

*In March 2008, Latvian police were quick to suggest Russian-born Leonid Rozhetskin had faked his own death. The millionaire vanished from his villa, and the mystery deepened when there were sightings of his private jet. Detectives are now investigating the possibility that he was the victim of a contract killing.