RICHARD EDEN: Dunhill heir 'fiancee' in £12billion fraud probe

Theirs is a rich, remarkable and sometimes sordid family story, veering from fortune-making genius to bigamy, bankruptcy and addiction.

But has any member of the Dunhill family – which was set on its way more than a century ago when Alfred Dunhill turned tobacco into gold – ever been jinxed in quite the manner that Piers Dunhill appears to be?

An investigation has been launched into the disappearance of £12billion in which Vanja Megevand, the woman Dunhill has described as ‘my lawyer’, has become a person of interest to the French authorities.

This would appear the cruellest stroke of ill luck for Dunhill, 32, who, in the past two years, has inadvertently become entangled with two entrepreneurs who were not quite what they seemed.

Last year, I revealed Dunhill had been snapped, smiling broadly, in a New York bar, with jeweller Vashi Dominguez, just three months before the latter’s company became the subject of a winding-up order, after which it emerged that investors – Phones 4u billionaire John Caudwell among them – had lost £170million.

Dunhill was just as unlucky when attending roadshows for potential investors in 2024 alongside Renato Brioni – previously known, as I also disclosed, as Renato Libric, under which name he’d received a three-year prison sentence for wire fraud in the US in 2018 and been ordered to pay over $1.5million in compensation to those he’d defrauded.

Piers Dunhill has inadvertently become entangled with two entrepreneurs who were not quite what they seemed in the past two years

The new case is obviously on an entirely different scale.

Every penny of the missing £12billion was, it’s alleged, fraudulently siphoned from a single individual, Nicolas Puech, a descendant of the founder of the luxury goods company Hermes.

French prosecutors are ‘pursuing probes’ into three Swiss lawyers ‘on preliminary charges of allegedly perpetrating an organised fraud’. One of them is Vanja Megevand.

On social media, she’s thanked for contributing to ‘a week of festivities’ hosted by Dunhill’s firm, Dunhill Ventures, in the Hamptons, USA in 2024.

Megevand, in turn, in a later post, pays a personal thank you to Dunhill after a financial networking event in London.

I’m told that so well did Dunhill and Megevand bond, their relationship transcended professional barriers and became romantic – to the extent that Dunhill referred to the lawyer as his fiancee.

‘She was his girlfriend,’ I’m assured. ‘The engagement may not have been officially announced but everyone who met them was given to understand that they were engaged.’

Dunhill declines to comment. Megevand’s lawyer tells me that she ‘strongly rejects the allegations’.

Helena pops out in her pyjamas

Helena Christensen slipped into a £595 Coco de Mer number for the brand’s 25th anniversary party at London Fasion Week

Lingerie should not be confined to the bedroom, declares Helena Christensen, who wore a lacy bodysuit for a night out this week. 

The model, 57, slipped into the £595 Coco de Mer number for the brand’s 25th anniversary party during London Fashion Week at Dear Darling in Mayfair. 

‘Wearing lingerie as outerwear is totally acceptable on a night out and shows a woman’s sense of confidence in herself,’ the Danish catwalk star tells me. 

The racy look certainly suited the venue: a private members’ club which includes a makeshift sex dungeon. You don’t get that down the Dog & Duck…

Call The Midwife star Helen George admits she faces a career ‘crossroads’ as the hit BBC drama’s future remains uncertain, with producers now turning their attention to a wartime prequel. 

The actress, 42, has played midwife Trixie Franklin for 15 years. ‘We don’t know what’s happening with this at the moment, because they’re concentrating on the prequel,’ she says. ‘We’re not filming the normal series, as we would do.’ 

George was absent from the National Television Awards for the second year running this month and currently stars in a theatre tour of High Society.

The smart set’s talking about... Donna Air’s gap year – at 47

Actress Donna Air has just embarked on a gap year at the age of 47, saying that she has gone to the US ‘to have some new adventures’

Gap years shouldn’t be just for teenagers before they go to university, says actress Donna Air, who’s embarked on her own one at the age of 47.

‘I’ve come to America to have some new adventures,’ says Donna, a former girlfriend of James Middleton, the Princess of Wales’s brother.

‘The reason I decided to get moving and maybe have the gap year I never had, is... my daughter left home, my dog passed away and then my dad [Trevor] passed away. Everything felt a little bit stuck.’

Donna has moved to Los Angeles. ‘It’s given me some new inspiration,’ she trills. ‘I feel more creative again... I’m gonna come back to the UK with a big spring in my step.’

With the King having reminded him that his future lies outside official royal duties, Prince Harry need look no further than his cousin Zara Tindall and her husband, Mike, for an example of how enthusiastically commercial freedom can be embraced. 

The former England rugby captain has built an increasingly varied business empire. Now, I can disclose, he’s expanding again, quietly setting up a ‘sports activities’ company called MT13 Events Ltd.

Could Meghan pull off a comic cameo?

The Duchess of Sussex is being urged to relaunch her screen career with a guest role on Saturday Night Live UK

It's Saturday Night Live UK... with Meghan Markle?

The Duchess of Sussex is being urged to relaunch her screen career with a guest role on Sky’s satirical show.

Meghan and Harry were lampooned on last Saturday’s SNL UK in a sketch which took digs at her Netflix lifestyle show.

But TV figures say a surprise cameo by the former actress would stop the mockery and transform her image.

‘Saturday Night Live would be a genius move – and the perfect vehicle to rehabilitate Meghan,’ says entertainment producer Steven D Wright.

‘She could show she has a sense of humour and self-deprecation too – even if it is only an act, the viewing public would love it and her.’

(Very) modern manners

King Charles’s goddaughter India Hicks has some bracing advice for dinner guests with dietary demands.

‘Everybody has the most annoying eating habits nowadays,’ complains the society hostess, 59. 

‘Someone won’t eat meat, someone won’t eat wheat. I make a point of not asking anyone if they have an eating difference because, I think, just eat before you come out to dinner if you can’t eat in a certain way.’