2023-06-20 04:00:00
A 57-year-old Quebecer has just been convicted of being the mastermind of one of the biggest mail frauds in US history, where he posed as clairvoyants in order to defraud elderly people. or vulnerable.
With more than a million victims who have had nearly $238 million taken from them in two decades, Patrice Runner might now establish himself as the biggest fraudster from the province.
By way of comparison, the spectacular fraud by Vincent Lacroix, with his investment management firm Norbourg, defrauded 9,200 investors for $130 million in 2005.
Last Thursday, Runner was convicted of regarding 15 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to engage in money laundering by a New York state jury.
From 1994 to 2014, Runner was the head of Infogest Direct Marketing, a mail company that sent millions of fraudulent letters to the United States and Canada. Its head office was in Place Ville Marie, Montreal.
Letters sent by ‘world-renowned psychics’ appeared at first glance to be personalized, as they repeatedly mentioned the name of the recipient, reads the indictment document filed in 2018 and viewed by The newspaper.
In exchange for an amount between 5 and 50 US dollars, these clairvoyants, who operated under the names Maria Duval and Patrick Guérin, “offered to help the victims to obtain luck or material advantages, or to avoid bad luck, disease or other negative results,” it says.
Maria Duval, a French psychic whose name, image and reputation were used in this fraud. Evidence filed in court
In other mailings, victims were asked to send back photos, a handprint or a lock of hair so that clairvoyants might “conduct personalized rituals and astrology services”, specify the American authorities.
Once the victim had given an initial amount to the clairvoyance service, he was then asked between 20 and 50 dollars. And the fraudsters were insistent: several victims received more than a hundred letters from them.
The letters were often personalized, with the name of the recipients. Evidence filed in court
Lists exchanged
The group behind the massive fraud obtained the majority of victims’ names and addresses through mailing lists rented or swapped with other mailers, according to US authorities.
“The mere fact that clairvoyant or fortune-telling services may sometimes be offered and sold for entertainment purposes does not mean […] that Mr. Runner’s intention was to entertain,” the US government said in a pretrial brief.
This fraud stopped happening in 2016, when US authorities banned the companies that sent the letters from using their postal services.
Front companies
“Runner used a series of front companies registered in Canada and Hong Kong to conceal his involvement in the scheme while living in several foreign countries, including Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Costa Rica and the Netherlands. ‘Spain,’ the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
Runner faces up to 20 years in prison on each count. He will receive his sentence at a later date. The man, who held Canadian and French citizenships, was arrested in Spain in 2018 and then extradited to the United States two years later.
Two of his Montreal accomplices, Maria Thanos and Philip Lett, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud in 2018.
– With Nicolas Brasseur, Investigation Office
HIS DEBUT IN MONTREAL
– Already in 1990, Runner had been talked regarding here following having published in the classifieds of several Montreal media the services of a clairvoyant who might predict the winning numbers of various lotteries. He was then fined more than $100,000.
– To carry out his fraudulent scheme, he used a panoply of companies registered in Canada and Hong Kong, while he lived in Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Costa Rica and Spain.
– Several tens of thousands of letters were sent weekly to potential victims across America, from the offices of Place Ville Marie.
– In 20 years, it would have caused approximately 1.4 million victims in the United States alone, according to the lawsuit.
– If a person had the misfortune to reply to one of the letters, they might subsequently receive more than sixty similar missives to bait them.
– Runner used the name of renowned French seers, including that of Maria Duval. It sold the rights to use its name, before losing control.
– In April 2019, the Quebecer was arrested in Ibiza, where he now lived, then was extradited from Spain in 2020.
– This case has been the subject of multiple reports, as well as a book entitled: A Deal With the Devil: The Dark and Twisted True Story of One of the Biggest Cons in History.
– With Jonathan Tremblay
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