'Claudio is Scamming'

One afternoon in the sweltering summer of 2023, Gill Simmonds, a sprightly woman in her early 70s, stepped out for a walk in Chelsea, near where she and her husband own and rent several elegant apartments. 

On her way to the fishmongers, Gill took a shortcut through Saint Luke’s Gardens and spotted one of her tenants coming around the corner. Claudio Di Giovanni, a handsome Italian in his 30s, had repeatedly denied Simmonds and her husband Julian access to their flat for inspections. He was often impossible to reach.

As Di Giovanni approached her, Simmonds wasn’t sure what to expect. A pair of boxing gloves hung around his neck. He was drenched in sweat. A few days of stubble shrouded his chin. He greeted her with a smile and leaned in. “There are no hard feelings,” he declared. Then Di Giovanni pulled her into a damp embrace. 

Simmonds extricated herself from the hug, but couldn’t dispel the sense of menace. That evening she told Julian that she’d felt frightened. Over the following months the Simmondses’ flat would be destroyed, they’d lose more than £28,314 in unpaid rent, and they would be forced into the mire of a lengthy legal battle to regain possession of their property.

Claudio Di Giovanni is a very high-end rental arbitrageur, a practice that in recent years has become a growing problem for London property owners, tenants and holidaymakers. He works in some of the capital’s wealthiest neighborhoods, leasing apartments and then subletting them out on short-stay platforms without the landlord’s authorisation. With his good looks, elite education and experience in business, Di Giovanni charms and captivates before he frustrates and disappoints, according to his former colleagues and business associates. Some of them have taken to sharing their bitterness in a WhatsApp group called “Claudio is Scamming”.

An investigation by The Londoner has found six upmarket landlords in the capital, in addition to the Simmondses, who say they are victims of Di Giovanni’s schemes. By my calculation, Di Giovanni has failed to pay well over £100,000 in rent and prompted at least four lawsuits. He’s also infuriated dozens of subletters, whose online complaints range from electrocution to “filthy” apartments and broken beds.

After being presented with the findings of the investigation, Airbnb told us it has decided to suspend two accounts believed to be connected to Di Giovanni’s operation. When contacted for comment about plans to curtail unauthorised subletting on their site, Booking.com noted that they already "perform multiple controls and checks" and "take further action,” including removing the listing, when they find wrongdoing. 

The government plans to introduce a voluntary registration system for holiday lets in England in April 2026. It remains unclear whether landlord authorisation will be required for a property to be placed on this registry. When The Londoner contacted the Cabinet Office for clarification, they told us “the policy had yet to be published”.

Claudio’s brother Mirko, a World Bank economist who was involved in the enterprise early on but relinquished his shares a year ago, argued that it “would probably not be credible and sensible writing a story based on… you know, angry landlords.”

When I put to him questions about Claudio’s business, he bristled. Mirko warned that The Londoner should be wary of publishing anything that implied wrongdoing, or that was not true to the facts, although none of my questions concerned his actions. Then he tapped into his own reservoir of charm. “It’s kind of joyful, you know, talking to you, I’ve enjoyed talking to you,” Mirko told me. He added:  “You know, this could actually backfire, so just be careful. Yeah?”

Alessandro Natalizio, Claudio Di Giovanni’s “second in command” in a previous venture, described him as a “ghost”. When Natalizio tried to regain money Di Giovanni owed to him, he couldn’t get a response, a phone number, a location — Di Giovanni had disappeared. The Simmondses also endured these long periods of silence.

Mindful of this elusiveness, I pressed Mirko to help me contact his brother.

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‘Get out of my fucking flat’

For thirty years, Julian and Gill Simmonds had rented out high-end London property without significant issue. Then Di Giovanni moved into their apartment on Chelsea’s Dovehouse Street in September 2022. The Italian would pay £2,500 a month to stay at the spacious one bed flat, which has the modish décor of a minimalist café, and is situated just a few minutes from the old-money glamour of King’s Road. 

Halfway through the two-year lease, the Simmondses’ managing agent got a call to say that Di Giovanni was advertising the flat for short-term let on Booking.com. The Simmondses saw their property listed for £356 a night, a rate more than four times what Di Giovanni was paying in rent. Another landlord who was renting to Di Giovanni at the same time found his flat listed for £870 a night, six times what the Italian was paying, even though his lease did not permit subletting. The difference in value between what the two apartments cost to rent and what they could bring in as sublets — the so-called Airbnb arbitrage — meant that Di Giovanni could earn £29,947 on these two flats alone in a single month, provided he was living somewhere else. 

The Simmondses decided not to act. At this point, Di Giovanni was still paying his rent on time, and they were already halfway through the contract. After the encounter in Saint Luke’s Gardens, intervening seemed like more hassle than it was worth. Then, in April 2024, they were contacted by several people who had attended a viewing at the Chelsea flat — it was now listed for long-term rent. 

Some of the prospective tenants had sensed something strange about the viewing, found the Simmondses on the Land Registry and asked them whether the property was actually for rent. The Simmondses told them it was not. 

A few days after the viewing, Di Giovanni emailed the Simmondses — “hey can you help with this”. He had attached a photo of a leak in the bathroom ceiling. Each time the couple arranged to have the leak fixed, Di Giovanni would cancel at the last minute. It was too early for him, he was ill, they could not reach him. The leak deteriorated. 

On the sixth attempt, the builder turned up at the agreed time, knocked on the door, and when no one answered, let himself in. Di Giovanni, according to what the builder told the Simmondses, was lying in bed, and told him to “Get out of my fucking flat”. The Simmondses later received an email from their tenant in which he suggested that the builder had threatened to murder him. 

As time passed, the drip became a deluge, and the flat was rendered virtually uninhabitable. Despite its condition, the shortstay listing stayed up. At one point, Julian was told by his lawyer to collect proof that Di Giovanni was subletting the property without authorisation. Julian booked the flat for a two-night stay to get the evidence and then cancelled.

The problems only worsened when the tenancy formally ended in September 2024. Despite a no-fault eviction notice being issued, it quickly became clear that Di Giovanni was not leaving. He also stopped paying rent. 

In January, Di Giovanni launched his own claim against the couple for £15,000, asserting that the Simmondses had ignored his repeated entreaties to fix the leak.

Then, a few weeks later (and four months after his lease had expired) he threatened to escalate this claim to £30,000. His subsequent offer to settle, on the condition that large chunks of his debt were cancelled and he was given a ten-year extended term, was rejected by the Simmondses. “We want him out of our life, we want to warn the public,” they told me. “We don't know how big this scam is.” The case has yet to be resolved.

After a long wait for their day in court, the couple had their possession order granted early this summer. They’re now waiting for the case to be transferred to the High Court for enforcement by bailiffs, the only way to have him evicted against his will. 

The Italian has accrued arrears of £28,314 and counting. Meanwhile, the Simmondses have received estimates saying it will cost £35,000 to repair damage caused by the leak. 

 ‘Ah, this is going to be bad’

In Cornwall Gardens, a long, narrow square lined with mid-Victorian Italianate townhouses, Di Giovanni has commandeered another property. In late September, he acquired a one-year lease on a sleek three-bedroom apartment, just across from the former residence of author Iris Murdoch, for £4,333 a month. 

“This property belongs to the husband of a friend of mine,” the letting agent, Phil Davenport, tells me. “He became unwell, and they rented out the property to provide a stable income whilst going through this dreadful time.”

After chasing Di Giovanni for unpaid rent, Davenport was invited to see him at Soho House. “He gave me some story that a bank had stolen 250 grand from him, and that’s why he had cash flow issues. During the meeting I thought, ‘I've been done here… this is going to be bad.’” 

Di Giovanni made some partial payments after this meeting. Then, two months into the tenancy, the landlord passed away. “Since he realised that,” Davenport says, “ he hasn’t paid any money at all.” 

The landlord died without leaving a valid will, and no legal representative has been appointed for the estate, so legal proceedings can’t be initiated. Davenport has resorted to pleading. “I was chasing him hard for money, asking him for possession, asking him to have a bit of empathy”. So far, the pleas have yielded nothing — aside from a claim for harassment, which De Giovanni informed Davenport he would be pursuing in January. 

In the same letter, the Italian also offered him a way out. “While I value the damages at £20,000” Di Giovanni wrote to Davenport, “I am willing to settle for £5,000 as a gesture of goodwill.” At the time of publication, he still has possession, and the apartment remains listed on Booking.com. By now, the Italian has racked up £39,497 in unpaid rent.

In August 2024, for a flat on Rutland Gate (a few doors down from what the Guardian called  the most expensive house in London) Di Giovanni entered into a three-year lease. Again, the pattern ensued — he passed the reference checks, stopped paying rent (accruing a debt of £35,100 and counting) and compelled the landlord to incur £15,000 in legal bills and other liabilities. 

The property owner, who declined to be named, described the arduous process of attempting to get Airbnb to remove a listing for his flat posted by De Giovanni. The platform maintained that they could not intervene. 

Six months after he originally complained, the landlord got his MP involved. Airbnb then agreed to suspend the listing but told him that the suspension was discretionary. Airbnb declined to comment on this specific case.

‘I decided to get out’

In reporting this story, I interviewed more than a dozen people who had dealt with Di Giovanni. The word most used to describe him, by friend or foe, was “charming”. According to a profile in Industria Italiana magazine, he “never stops talking.”

Di Giovanni comes from wealth. He and his brother attended one of the most exclusive schools in Naples, which he followed with a degree in economics from Bocconi University, one of Italy’s most prestigious universities. In 2013, by the age of 23, he had obtained two master’s degrees, one from ESADE and one from the London School of Economics.

After his education,  Di Giovanni appeared to be on the path to fulfilling the aspirations of his privileged upbringing. He got a job in Thailand with Lazada, an e-commerce platform eventually acquired by Alibaba. 

After leaving the company, Di Giovanni was drawn into the highly competitive world of start-up entrepreneurship. His first attempt at success came with WATCHR, a digital platform connecting buyers and sellers of second-hand luxury watches. He raised £100,000 for the project, according to his interview with Industria Italiana, with a quarter of the funding coming from Richard Branson’s non-profit Virgin StartUp.

The company, which later rebranded as Verado, never fulfilled its promise and is now petering out of existence. Two other start-up attempts met similar fates, according to Companies House.

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Heavenly Stays, founded in August 2023, appears to be the main vehicle Di Giovanni uses for his rental arbitrage. Its Companies House listing indicates the name has recently been changed to Heavenly Technologies. The Londoner identified twelve luxury properties (11 in London and one in Koh Samui, Thailand) listed on accounts connected to Heavenly Stays for nightly prices ranging from £205 to £971. 

The company was co-founded by Di Giovanni, his brother Mirko and Mustafa Kiral,  a close business associate of Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, whom the EU sanctioned for their membership in Vladimir Putin’s “inner circle” in 2022. The pair were removed from the sanctions list in 2024 after an EU court found that there wasn’t enough evidence to show they had supported the war in Ukraine.

Kiral owned 50% of the shares at Heavenly Stays at the time of its founding but relinquished his involvement in September 2024. Previously, he was a senior partner at LetterOne Holdings, Fridman’s multi-billion pound global investment firm.

Kiral described himself in an email as an investor in a variety of businesses and industries. He told us that he “invested a small amount (by way of seed funding) in Heavenly Stays in August 2023”, and that this was the limit of his involvement in the company. He had met “the two brothers… many years ago and kept in touch.” The original plan was that they “were to be in charge of operating and running the company, and I was the investor.” 

He eventually understood that “the business potential was not good and, due to the brothers being distracted and providing unsatisfactory reporting, I decided to get out.” Since then he has not seen Mirko, and “only ran into Claudio twice during the last year”. “[The] incidents… you mention in your email must have happened after I cut contact with the company and I am not aware of them.”

Mirko told me that he “was charged with operations and setting up the company” but that at the beginning, “As in every start up…there was no proper distinction” between the roles people took on.

In his time at Heavenly Stays he “really didn’t witness anything that felt, like, you know, any intentional fraud or malicious behaviour.” With regard to “recent developments” he added, “I’m definitely not the best person to talk to”.

‘Don’t drink any water’

Horror stories have accumulated on the travel platform accounts connected to Di Giovanni. There are complaints of “filthy” apartments, flooded bathrooms, random unannounced visitors, (one person says a crew of exterminators were appointed to spray pests on a day they had booked), broken beds and holes in the door where locks used to be. 

In response to a complaint about an apartment with no running water, Di Giovanni was alleged to have told a customer that the water had stopped “because the guests who checked out before you had a party in the shower.” This, the customer felt, “made no real sense.”

Another tenant, speaking to The Londoner on the condition of anonymity, described being electrocuted in a Knightsbridge flat she had subletted from Heavenly Stays. 

“I was opening the dishwasher and touching the rim of the outer stove with my other hand and I got electrocuted… I physically shuddered.” She described how “a plumber arrived and started testing with that measuring thing, and it showed that all the equipment in the kitchen was live, nothing was earthed.”  This is when, she told The Londoner, she started, “really panicking”.

The plumber turned off the water and the electricity, and she called her host to complain. "Calm down, don't drink any water,” Di Giovanni told her. She thought this strange. “I don't know if they had experience of having someone electrocuted before, but that comment would suggest, maybe.” 

Despite leaving halfway through her tenancy, months later she has yet to be refunded. Di Giovanni has fallen silent. “We’ve been trying to raise this with Booking.com” she tells us, “to no avail.”

When presented with the findings of The Londoner’s investigation, Booking.com said they had "reached out to the customer for further information to assist in finding a resolution."

‘He only eats Michelin star’

In the tranches of court documents related to cases Di Giovanni was involved in, I found an address for him in Ealing. Since my attempts to reach him electronically had yielded only silence, I made the journey to find him in person. At the door, I met a perplexed South American woman. “I worked for him a long time ago,” she said. “He used my address. I say to him, ‘the letters are coming from court, stop using my address.’”

Despite this setback, De Giovanni  was coming into focus. Word of my investigation was spreading among the membership of the “Claudio is Scamming” WhatsApp group. I received a call from a former associate of Di Giovanni's who had fallen out with him over unpaid debts. 

“You know what I think is his problem, very, very, honestly?” the man said. “He doesn’t understand that there is a limit. Whatever he does, he gives it a reason, he thinks it’s all normal. But he’s wrong. There is a limit, and if you go over that limit, you’re doing something illegal.”

“What’s even more scary ... is that he doesn’t do this with the intention to fuck someone. He thinks it’s normal — he’s like a baby who needs to touch the fire”.

I looked at screenshots from the chat. A member wondered whether Di Giovanni had scammed any other people in the group. “Any? Many bro” came the answer. The complaints were many too. “He made [name] pay for his food and stay — and he only eats Michelin star”. Another described being tricked into investing in Di Giovanni's venture, “I was thinking he’s making me part of his business. Turns out he made me part of his travel and lodging expenses.”

The members in the chat had varying theories as to Di Giovanni’s whereabouts.

One said he was in China, or maybe Thailand. Later, I was forwarded another message, allegedly written by Di Giovanni, which indicated he was heading to Georgia and then on to Italy and San Francisco.

My appeal to Mirko De Giovanni to help me reach Claudio didn’t result in an interview. Instead I received an emailed letter from Claudio that threatened legal action if The Londoner did not “cease and desist”. It answered none of the questions I’d sent him about his business practices.

Mirko refused to be drawn on his brother’s whereabouts, “Even if I knew, I think that's, you know, private and confidential information… I really don't understand the reason why you asked me this question. It's like, you telling me where you're gonna be at tonight.”