LONDON (AP) – A high-flying thief who travelled the world stealing cash and jewellery from luxury hotel rooms is on the run from a British jail, police said yesterday.

Colombian national Gonzalo Zapater Vives – also identified in the media as Juan Carlos Guzman-Betancourt – was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison in April.

Police in the county of Kent, south of London, said that Zapater had absconded while on temporary release from Standford Hill minimum-security prison on June 6.

“Inquiries into his whereabouts are ongoing and other forces have been notified,” the force said in a statement.

The Home Office said all British ports and airports had been alerted.

Prosecutors said Zapater, 29, modeled himself partly on Frank Abagnale, Jr., the suave con man played by Leonardo Di Caprio in the movie “Catch Me if You Can.”

He admitted burgling the Mandarin Oriental and Dorchester hotels in London, and was linked by police to a string of other robberies.

At his trial, lawyers said the thief used his wit, charm, good looks and a collection of designer suits to talk his way into other people’s hotel rooms, claiming to have lost his key or forgotten the code to the safe.

Prosecutors said he stole at least 150,000 pounds (US$280,000, euro220,000) in jewellery, cash and other valuables in Britain alone.

Police have linked him to similar robberies in Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico. He also spent time in Russia, Canada, Thailand and Japan.

Zapater was detained by police in London in 1998, but jumped bail. He was arrested in December after an off-duty police officer recognised him in a London supermarket, thanks to a distinctive mole near his eyebrow.