A DOUBLE-crossing property agent used his good looks and charm to swindle Hong Kong flat-hunters out of tens of thousands of dollars before disappearing. Police investigating the rip-off do not know where conman David John Tynan is and have alerted Interpol fearing he has skipped the territory. Tynan had access to several upmarket homes and is believed to have used the same property scam to simultaneously con home owners and flat-hunters. His former flatmates have been bombarded with calls from angry victims since he was last seen two weeks ago. A tall, dark-haired attractive man, Tynan was a charmer and used that magnetism to his advantage. Two women tricked by him admitted his good looks and smooth manner lulled them into trusting him. He claimed to work as a model, socialised with the territory's young and privileged, and boasted he was going to get rich quick. But behind the facade of the go-getting businessman with a wardrobe of smart suits and his own office, Tynan was sleeping on a sofa in a Causeway Bay share flat, and using the phone there to pull off thousand-dollar scams using forged contracts and bad cheques. Tynan advertised his dodgy short-term letting operation in newspapers. Clients stung by him rued the day they saw the ad, which read: ''Let your property with complete legal cover, financial benefit and peace of mind.'' A Consumer Council spokesman warned anybody could set themselves up as a property agent as there was no licensing or legislation to govern estate agency in Hong Kong. One couple who leased their flat to Tynan for two weeks discovered halfway through their holiday that he had let the flat to someone for a month. A British woman flat-hunting for her South American business partner paid $60,000 - one month's rent and one month's deposit - to Tynan on her colleague's behalf, but the man was forced to move out of the flat after a week when the owners returned. He isnow living in a hotel. ''I was impressed by Tynan. He was very charming, and really did have model good looks,'' the woman said. ''He showed me several homes. That's the worrying thing. He was running around with keys to all these places. We think he conned several other people, collected all the cash on the same day and disappeared.'' Her partner had only lived in the house for two days when the owners' son called to say his mother would be home the following week. ''That is when it all came to light,'' the partner said. ''We called Tynan's number, but the people who answered the phone said he had disappeared. My cheques to him had already cleared, so there was nothing we could do.'' He has passed the cheques, plus other documents connected to the fraud, to the police. Both parties are angry and embarrassed at being conned and want to remain anonymous, especially the female flat owner - who is in the property business. ''We haven't been burned financially, but we are still angry,'' she said. When the Sunday Morning Post called Tynan's number it turned out to be the home telephone of a Causeway Bay flat. We spoke to a man who did not want to be identified. He said they had been bombarded with calls from irate victims. ''We met him in a pub, and he was looking for somewhere to stay, so we let him sleep on the settee. He said he was going to make loads of money. He put an advert in the paper, and stayed at home all day while people phoned him up. ''He never gave us any rent. He disappeared before the month was up.'' Tsim Sha Tsui CID Detective Senior Inspector Conway Leung said: ''We have asked immigration to check whether he has left Hong Kong but I doubt whether David Tynan was his real name.''
