It has been a long time since I worked on this story and part of what has motivated me to pick it back up is some recent interest in it, and a dilemma. When I first started writing these "True Crime" posts I wrote that I changed some names, not to protect the guilty but to protect the innocent, the guilty don't need protection. I still wonder if I should be putting the guilty's names as is, because these stories took place awhile ago (in this case 10 years ago) and people move on, people change, sometimes people carry the same names as the people I write about. At then end of the day, I decided, for the time being anyway, to leave things as they are. Most, if not all, of my readers are intelligent people able to distinguish then from now, and what I am writing clearly happened and there is a court record of what transpired.
There has also been a fair amount of interest in this story of late and what is interesting is who I believe one of the visitors may be… let’s just say it’s been awhile since we last spoke.
So let’s continue on with this tale..
One of the first things that was obtained in the scam was transportation for all of them. They would after all need transportation for trip, and although I can’t recall the details of why it he couldn’t put on his card the group rented a Toyota 4 Runner, on the card of one of the Australians, the only guy in the group. The next step in the scam was to actually get ahold of the four victim’s money, and that was relatively simple.
If you remember, Leo had “hired” the four, effective immediately, to be river guides for him, and he’d need away to start paying them. The easiest way would be to open bank accounts for each of them and have the money transferred directly to their accounts. They wouldn’t be able to access it until they reached Whitehorse, but that wasn’t a problem, for he was going to take care of all their expenses on the trip.
In order to open the accounts, in light of them being foreigners and all, he would need some full proof ID for the banks, and nothing would be more full proof then their Credit Cards. He’d open the accounts, send off their ID and they’d have money and the cards when they reached Whitehorse. So in turn, each one of them turned their card over to him, and he had everything he needed.
It is easy, when you know the whole story, to sit back and think “how could anyone turn over their cards like that.”, but it’s important to know that good con men make things like this seem to be a logical thing to do. After all the “con” in con man stands for confidence, and once a good one has your confidence, in him or her, almost everything seems plausible.
Leo always made sure he was alone when ever he paid for anything, for he always paid with their cards. At the start he bought supplies that they would need for the trip and the summer, a tent, other camping and sporting gear. Food etc. He always booked the hotel room (unknown to the victims on their card). He was also making cash withdrawals along the way. He used one card at a time, until it reached its limit, and then went on to the next card. If memory serves me he was on his third card of the four when our paths crossed.
Some people wonder why, once he had the cards, why he didn’t just abandon the victims. He, after all, had the cards, what he wanted. The answer is rather simple actually. If he just left the cards would be reported stolen in pretty short order and he wouldn’t be able to maximize the profit from them. By keeping them close he could assure that he was able to make maximum use of the cards, bleed them dry so to speak.
Comments
3 responses
Kia ora Clare,
Great story, look forward to the next installment. I wish I could look at it from a judgemental angle, but 20 some years ago I was playing frisbee in Golden Gate Park with a couple friends when approached by a mid 30’s hip looking guy needing quick directions. We soon were in a discussion with him about the Jerry Garcia show that night and gosh, it turned out he had tickets, backstage passes, food and booze, and because we were such good guys, apparently, the tickets were ours for 30 bucks apiece,a deal too good to be true. He just had to go back to his hotel and get the tickets, and only one of us could go with him, our driver. I smelled a rat, but turned over the money anyway. He jumped out of the car at a stop light and we never saw the show or him again. I learned a big lesson, and really got off easy. Kia ora Clare.
Ka kite ano,
Robb
I’m loving this story!
Thanks for picking it back up again.
Hey Robb, sorry that you got burned, he couldn’t have been a true Deadhead. The thing with Con Men is that they are pretty adept and quickly sizing up their prey and figuring out what will tempt them.
We often hear people say “listen to your inner voice” – in your case it was smelling a rat, but unfortunately many people are listening to their inner voice when they fall into the trap. Usually “If it sounds too good to be true it usually is” is a pretty good truism to follow.
Thanks Jennifer and Ian, I know I kind of concluded it quickly but I could see it going on a lot longer.