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I just literally remember my past lives. I just remember that I was this multidimensional being since I first came here and strangers would come up to me and just tell me things.

It's a rainy day in late February, 2024, and I'm sitting in a cozy living room at a home in Toronto's east end. I'm waiting for Tara Green, a well known psychic in town, to start my reading. Tara's everything I'd imagine a psychic to look like. Dark, flowing clothes and bright, almost sparkling green eyes that make me feel like she's looking right through me. She starts by smudging me to cleanse my aura. Smoke curls up from the bundle of sage leaves that she's holding in her hand.

People come in with all kinds of stress, worries, and entities, so I just want to clear all that for you.

Tara's really trying here, but I just can't quite relax into this, honestly, I'm not a regular psychic goer by any means. This is not my natural environment. But I want to see what Tara will say about the story I'm looking into about a scam, a psychic scam.

I'm really glad you came here today because you're going through one of the most critical transits in your life.

Tara hands me a pack of tarot cards, creased and faded from years of use.

So I want you to shuffle them really well with your left hand. And just think about whatever it is you want to know about.

Will these cards reveal anything new to me at all?

All right, so I'm gonna lay out all the cards here.

Tara flips three cards over the wheel of fortune, the chariot, and, surprisingly, the fool.

This is the wheel of fortune. You're dealing with millions of dollars here, right? So the center is money, right? And people being the fool. And it's an international, that's Sagittarius, an international thing. So people all over the world have been affected. So you're kind of delving as deep as you can into what makes people of trust. Why would they hand over their money to someone in hopes of improving their lives, of course, or their situations. Right?

Tara's kind of right about my motivations here. As an investigative journalist, I do want to understand how the scam made so many people believe in it, because we all need to believe in something. That belief is what makes us human, but also leaves us vulnerable to people who might abuse it. I'm going to tell you the story of this scam, a crime of epic proportions that took almost $200 million from more than a million Americans. To put it into perspective, thats 60 times the number of victims of Bernie Madoffs Ponzi scheme. And it wasnt just Americans who were victimized. The scam found its way from Canada, across Europe and all the way to Australia. The scam was carefully crafted, using the power of intriguing copy to lure its victims into believing that good fortune was on the way. It required multiple law enforcement agencies, journalists and citizen sleuths to peel back the layers of deceit.

But there's somebody else. I think that's like a wild card that you didn't expect at all. Right? Yeah, a big wild card here.

Yes.

A bit shocking.

The further down the rabbit hole I get with my reporting, the more my perspective shifts. What seems like a relatively straightforward scheme on the surface morphs into a crime unlike anything I've ever seen. One that taps into people's deepest, most personal desires. 1.4 million unique Americans were victimized. Now there's 330 million people in the United States. So that is one out of every 300 men, women and children walking down the street.

If somebody says the right words, promises the right things, anybody can become a victim.

I said what? You know, obviously I'm in shock, complete and utter shock. What do you mean, the DOJ?

So he had a voodoo doll in his office, and he had little pins on the voodoo dolls representing all the agencies that had gone after his company. I just thought, okay, this guy's different. This has got to be one of the worst, worst crimes in all of history.

This is a story about belief, about wanting more and how far we might go to get it. I'm Rachel Brown, and this is the greatest scam ever written. From Sony Music Entertainment and ITM Productions episode one your devoted friend. I first came across the case were about to get into back in 2020. And since then ive been in deep because, yes, it has all the usual elements I look for in a good a cast of cruel villains and fearless heroes, eccentric characters and strange twists. But this story is so much more than that. Its also about pure faith, the sort of faith I used to feel myself growing up in an evangelical christian household in Canada. Thats a world I stepped back from long before I became a journalist, but it left its mark. I still feel that desire sometimes to put aside all my objective reporter instincts and just have faith in something. And I remain fascinated by what makes other people go all in on their beliefs. Our story includes millions of people all around the world who did just that, hopeful people who put their trust into one woman they had never even meth.

People like Doreen Robinson. It's a sleepy morning in the late fall of 2009 in St. Albert, Canada. St. Albert is the kind of town you move to when you want your life to slow down. It sits on the Sturgeon river, which is popular with cross country skiers, probably the most canadian activity. And I can say that because I'm canadian. On this frosty day, on the fourth floor of a newly built condo near the artsy side of town, a bunch of mail slips through the mailbox onto the doormat. Doreen Robinson, a woman in her early seventies, peers into the bathroom mirror, preoccupied with the deepening wrinkles around her eyes. She straightens up when she hears the sound of the mail hitting the floor in the living room. She rushes to the door, eagerly picks up the pile of mail and flicks through it to see if she's received anything from her kids. Her heart sinks. All she sees is a flyer for a local pizza place, solicitations from a charity, eye catching coupons. She goes to toss them in the trash, but then Doreen stops. She notices a clean white envelope in the pile. Theres some handwriting scrawled across the top of the envelope.

Doreen, you have to read this.

In a sea of junk mail, Doreen cant believe someone has taken the time to handwrite a letter and address it directly to her. Its been so long since someone has written to her. Doreens curiosity is piqued. She slides her nail under the adhesive, eases the envelope open, feels the roughness of the ten or so pages in her hands. She opens them up and reads a few lines, taking in the careful, cursive handwriting.

Dear Doreen, this is perhaps the most important letter you have ever received.

It's a letter from someone called Maria Duvalle, who claims to be a psychic. Doreen isnt one to believe in all of that, but as she reads on, she gets more and more intrigued. Maria is offering her wealth, health, and spiritual guidance at no cost. Shes trying to look out for Doreen, and most importantly, she has chosen Doreen. All these are actual words from real letters voiced by an actor.

Hi, Maria Duval. I'm going to prepare your personal astral clairvoyant forecast for the coming months for free.

Seems like a no brainer, right? And what Doreen needs to do couldn't be simpler.

As soon as I have your photo, I'm going to be able to concentrate all my psychic strengths further. I will keep the photo with me for the months and years to come so that my contact as medium can be with you permanently. Doreen, all you have to do is grasp the hand of friendship we are holding out to you.

At the bottom of the final page, Maria signs off, the ink of her signature glistening in the light.

I am counting on you and send you all my friendship. Your devoted friend, Maria Duval.

Doreen clutches the pages to her chest like a lifeline. It feels like she's been waiting for something like this for a very long time. Doreen doesn't know it yet, but this letter is the start of an intense relationship shell have with Maria Duvall, and it will spiral into something much darker.

It just pains me to know that such a strong and independent and financially sound woman could fall victim to something like this.

Doreen isn't around anymore to tell her story, but this is her daughter, Chrissy.

I was born Christine, but over the years got changed to Chrissy.

Chrissy spent the last decade of Doreen's life caring for her. She is, by her metrics, on the south side of 64 years old, with a tangle of blonde, curly hair and bright blue eyes.

A few years after I was married, we found a small farm out by Stoney plain. We kind of became modern pioneers on this farmland, trying to set up our dream home.

I spent an afternoon getting to know Chrissy, who was on her three acre farm in Stoney Plain near Edmonton, Canada. Her chihuahua, Aussie was glued to her side throughout the entire interview. She wanted me to understand what her mom was really like long before the first letter arrived.

My mom was a very stylish woman. I remember as a little girl watching her. She would always put on the same red lipstick before she went out, and she wouldn't even look in the mirror, and she'd always have it in the lines of her lips perfectly. She even had go go boots, knee high white go go boots laced up the front.

Although Doreen hung up her go go boots in her later years, she still had passions that she wanted to pursue on her own. After her husband passed away, she moved into a little condo and put space aside for all her creative projects.

She specifically wanted a two bedroom because she wanted the larger bedroom to be her craft room. She was enjoying her retirement. And then weird things would start happening.

Chrissy and her brother noticed that Doreen's starting to forget things. First, small stuff like passwords and keyboard shortcuts. Then one day, Doreen's car comes back from the mechanic.

She didn't have it for about maximum four or five days. When she got it back, she complained that it didn't go into reverse. She called my brother. He came out to have a look. He says, mom, it's, it's fine. And it was as if she had forgotten how to drive.

In those four days, Chrissy opened, overcome with worry, makes an appointment with a doctor, and it's bad news. Doreen is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She's in her early seventies. The doctors put her on medication to slow the progression of the disease. But Doreen's memory keeps getting worse. Chrissy realizes that her mom needs help day to day, especially when it comes to handling her money.

It became evident that I had to take over my mother's finances because she was unable to remember where to fill in a check so she couldn't pay her bills.

In 2012, Chrissy stays over at Doreen's condo, sitting down to help her sift through all the paperwork that's been building up in ever growing piles around the apartment. And that's the moment when something odd catches her eye.

When I was studying her accounts, and I noticed on her bank statements, the bank would give her a copy of all of the checks that have gone through. And I noticed that there was all those checks, usually for dollar 59 to Maria Duvall.

Maria Duvalle. Chrissy had never heard of this woman, and yet her mother has been sending.

Her regular payments, sometimes days apart, sometimes a week apart. But all of these $59. And of course I asked mom, you know, what are these payments for? And she either couldn't remember or perhaps didn't want to admit what it was for.

Whenever Chrissy asks Doreen about Maria Duvall, she becomes secretive, erratic. Maybe it's her Alzheimer's that's prompting this reaction, or maybe something else is going on. So Chrissy sits down and begins an investigation of her own.

So I started getting all of her bank statements together, and here I am with a yellow highlighter. Going through all these current statements the last three or four years, I added up that she had paid out almost $5,000 to this Maria devel, new from the embedded podcast.

Female athletes have always needed grit and talent, but for decades, they've also needed a certificate.

There was chitchat about is that really a woman?

And even now, they're still being checked and questioned. Their story is the newest series from CBC and NPR's embedded. It's called tested. Listen wherever you get your podcasts hi.

I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before and not the cases you've heard before. Youll hear stories on crime junkie that havent been told anywhere else. Ill tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice. Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday. Already waiting for you. By searching for crime junkie wherever you listen to podcasts.

Chrissy is floored. Its completely out of character for her mom to spend that kind of money on anything that isnt essential. As a business owner who managed the familys finances when Chrissy was younger, Doreens always been incredibly responsible with money. And yet here she is, sending thousands of dollars to a woman shes never mentioned to Chrissy before. Has Doreen made a new friend seeking more answers about who this woman is? Chrissy goes through her moms mail and the same name crops up again and again. Maria Duvall the letters would start Dear.

Doreen, you know, I hope you find comfort from your lucky numbers this week or whatever it was. To get more goodwill. Please send $59. I don't know exactly how it went, but that's pretty much the gist of it.

Doreen has never been one to seek out psychic help of any kind.

She was not one to believe in ghosts or mystics or psychics or what have you. If she couldn't see it, it didn't exist. It was just nonsense.

Chrissy's unsure when Doreen received the first letter. All she knows is that her correspondence with this woman has been going on for a while. What Chrissy doesnt know is that theres been a steady stream of these letters from Maria Duvall for three whole years. And its not just the letters. Marias been sending Doreen gifts as well. Chrissy shows me one while were talking.

Its a heavy gold colored ring. Its huge. It wouldnt fit anybody but a giant. I dont know what ones supposed to do with it, but she would get these in a little velveteen pouch.

You can hear the metal as it clinks here.

And I remember cleaning up her house one day and came across this, opened up the little pouch. And I said, can I throw this away mom? And she clutched it to her chest. No, no. It's so important. No. And she popped it into her jewelry box.

Chrissy thinks this is junk. Junk from junk mail. But Doreen believed these were sacred objects blessed by her own private psychic, her very own totem. These gifts from Maria would arrive with more letters which would instruct Doreen on how to use them to bring her luck and of course ask for more money. Chrissy starts finding trinkets everywhere around the condo. Doreen begins wearing one around her neck.

She truly believed that somehow this was going to save her mind from going further into the depths of dementia. It's disgusting. Its a useless trinket.

Doreens deepest desire is to regain her mental capacity. And she genuinely believes that Marias gifts and words of affirmation will help do that. This realization devastates Chrissy. She no longer recognizes the woman she grew up with. Her mom is now under the influence of a force Chrissy cant understand, a woman shes never met and knows nothing about. Doreens special friend is promising to change her misfortune and help her think straight again. An idea that she has become fixated on. Whilst all other thoughts slip away, Chrissy makes the difficult decision to intervene with her mothers best interests at heart. Chrissy takes away her checkbook. But this doesn't stop Doreen sending money to Maria.

I had discovered that mom had walked down to the bank, it was about three blocks away, had pulled some money out, I can't remember how much, but a few hundred came home and she tried to send off $59 in paper and coins. It was mind boggling, gobsmacking, just ugh.

Its like these letters were, I dont know, a type of addiction for Doreen. She was hooked. And as her health deteriorated, her relationship with Maria only deepened. Chrissy never quite understood what compelled her mom to continue this relationship with Maria Duvall, even when she could barely remember her own childrens names. But maybe Maria simply gave her mom something to believe in, something to hope for.

Mom would go down to the foyer of the building to collect her mail and she would just get so excited to open up her little mailbox and she'd be packing her arm full of mail and it was making her day.

And in moments of clarity, did she also realize that this was a scam or did she get embarrassed sort of in those brief instances where maybe she realized what she was doing?

I'm not sure that my mom ever realized that this was a scam. Perhaps in my lecturing her, she might have understood for half an hour, but later in the day or the next day, it's all forgotten.

Doreen passed away on September 20, 2014, surrounded by her three kids in a local nursing home. Chrissy's two brothers tried to close the chapter and forget about Maria Duvall, but Chrissy had taken on most of Doreen's care in her final years, watching helplessly as those letters stole her mother's attention, took away her focus and her hard earned cash. She cant move on so easily. A few days after Doreens death, Chrissy decides she needs to know who this Maria Duvall woman really is. So she shares her story on an online message board where people swap information about scams and I sat down and.

I just angrily banged out, I dont know, two or three paragraphs about my experience, my mothers experience with it.

She waits, wondering if anyone will reply. Chrissy doesnt know it yet, but this scam goes way beyond her mom, way beyond the city of St. Albert and way beyond even Canada. And shes not the only one seeking answers about Maria Duvalle.

I get hurt in the pit of my stomach when I see people being victimized. I'm not going to let anybody else fall for this.

Literally hundreds, if not 1000 needles came down like the heavens were falling. I'm Natalia Petrazella from BBC Radio Four. This is extreme muscle men. When you're muscular, when you're big, you get respect. This is the story of the biggest illegal steroid operation the United States had ever seen, and the lengths to which we'll go in pursuit of perfection. Extreme musclemen listen wherever you get your podcasts. And did you ever try digging around, researching, figuring out who's behind the letters?

I phoned the police. I phoned the post office, and neither one was of any help. When the police tell me, well, it's buyer beware. Your mother should have been aware it was oh, okay, end of story.

I can't imagine the frustration of feeling like every door has been slammed shut in your face when the people you assume will be there to protect you refuse to help. But help can come from the most unexpected places.

I got this letter in the mailbox addressed to myself personally from Maria Duval. It was like a huge package with about ten pages in it and pictures of tokens, magic tokens, that if you got this token and sent her $10 or whatever it was, $20, she would provide you with more things to help solve your problems.

So you just happened to get this letter in your mailbox?

Yeah.

Everybody in my, I live in a townhouse community with about 40, 40 units and every single one of us got it.

This is doctor Terry Paulovoye. Hes a 79 year old retired pediatrician based in Waterloo, Ontario, a couple hours outside Toronto. Terry has spent his life working to protect people and not just patients in his medical practice. Hes taken to spending his spare time working as an amateur scam buster, a vigilante of sorts, hunting down and exposing fraudsters and con artists online. Its his lifes passion and he could spend all day telling you about it. Trust me, I know all you think.

Is if I had not been working all these years trying to expose scams on the Internet, life would have been a lot simpler for me. And I don't think I'm going to stop doing it, even though my wife wants me to stop doing it.

And so when Terry receives this big dossier in the mail from someone named Maria Duvalle, his spidey senses are immediately tingling.

It was an out and out scam from somebody you never heard of. And as soon as you see the name psychic pops to mind, you say to yourself, I'm not going to let anybody else fall for this. I'll do my best to try and stop people from falling for it.

Terry's outrage sparks him into action. At first, Terry goes down the same route Chrissy does and tries to report the letters to the authorities.

And so I took the package, the whole entire package I received down to our local postal distribution center and they looked at me really funny saying, you really expect us to do something about this?

With the postal service? A dead end. Terry takes matters into his own hands.

So I was in the blog making mode in those days.

He goes onto his blog and puts out a plea for any information about the mysterious Maria Duvalle. And 2000 miles away in St. Albert, Chrissy has come to the same realization. Shes going to get no help from the authorities in getting justice for her mother, Doreen. The truth is the police see this as a classic case of buyer beware. Doreen willingly sent the money in exchange for a service. So the fault lies with her. And so Chrissy, in her fury and grief, also turns to the Internet for clues about the woman who had taken over the final years of her mothers life life.

I opened up my laptop and I went to a site called ripoffreport.com, which I believe is a consumer awareness site.

Now my first instinct from the very start of all of this would have been to go straight to Google and type in Maria Duvalle. But you have to remember that at first, Chrissy genuinely believed in Maria Duvall. She may have had deep misgivings about her mother sending money to this mysterious woman, but she had no reason to think that her mothers pen pal was also sending personalized letters to dozens of other people, let alone hundreds of thousands of other people. Chrissy had seen Maria scrawled writing in black and white. The handwritten signatures, the details about her mom only an intimate friend would know. But now, finally, Chrissy finds herself typing in the name Maria Duvall on a scam complaint website and hitting search. It's a total shot in the dark. She waits as the browser loads.

And that's kind of when my eyes were opened.

Chrissy takes in what's on the screen in front of her and realizes this is much, much bigger than just her mom. Across the world, thousands of people have been receiving the same letters and responding by sending their life savings to the exact same Maria Duvall. Doreen had given a chunk of her own savings to Maria, but it didn't leave her destitute. For many others, it was a different story.

I am so absolutely sick of receiving letters from Maria Duval.

She can never have enough. She wrote to me and said that she had good news for me. And did you know I've been getting.

Them now for over ten years?

She was eagerly waiting on my disability check to send her money and she.

Would send me three.

She's the biggest scammer ever. And I believed I sent more money. She'd be imprisoned immediately so she can die there, lost my job and none.

Of the crap she boasts about as.

Habits and almost my husband because shame on you, evil woman. I wished she would just leave me alone.

When I saw the scope of these victims, people who couldn't afford to pay their electric bill or their water bill. They'd been without water for two months or they couldn't afford to get their groceries and all they wanted in return was whatever it was that Maria Duval was promising them. Health, wealth and happiness. It really makes a sane person question how another sane person could attack people that are vulnerable and are wishing for something so bad that they will cling to this ridiculous notion of amulets and lucky numbers like, oh my goodness, this has got to be one of the worst, worst crimes in all of history.

Back in Ontario, Terry also realizes that so many people saw Maria Duvall as their personal psychic, helping them and them alone.

So I have a couple of dozen, maybe people from around North America, I think, even including Australia, that posted short notes about, oh, I got the exact same package you did.

As the weeks go on, Terry's inundated with messages from across the world. It's not just America. It's England, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia. The same message again and again and again. It's an impossible amount of letters. How could something so insidious make its way into people's homes and through their trusted mail system so easily?

My mother would have been getting 30 to 40 letters in a week.

Terry and Chrissy have individually had their eyes open to the scale of the Maria Duvall operation, but they're no closer to figuring out who this woman is.

I was angry and upset and feeling jilted on behalf of my mother. I wanted to know who was responsible for this. I assumed it was Maria Duvel.

Beyond a few old articles and some complaints in online forums, there was very little information out there about her. We know she's a french psychic with a skilled skill for developing deep personal relationships with Americans, and theyre sending her boatloads of money. Does this Maria know the damage shes done to Doreen and so many others? And how on earth can one person be masterminding this giant psychic fraud? My search will take us on a journey from a tiny village in the south of France to dumpsters on Long island. With the help of a gun toting investigator, an alien worshiping businessman, and vigilante scam hunters well reveal the inner workings of one of the greatest scams ever written. Next time on the greatest scam ever written, Maria, psychic to the stars.

When I was as a child, I had this gift, but I thought it was something that everybody had. It was only after several years that I finally understood that I was different, because I realized I wasn't like other people.

Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of Smokescreen, the greatest scam ever written ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge podcast Channel. Just click subscribe at the top of the Smokescreen show page on Apple Podcasts, or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the first of every month. Check out the Binge Channel page on Apple Podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. This episode of the greatest scam ever written was hosted by me, Rachel Brown. Our sound designers are Luca Evans and Sam Cassetta. Our mixer is Jay Rothman. Our assistant producers are Luca Evans and Leo Schick. Our producer is Millie Chu. Our story editor is Dave Anderson. Voices by Nevada Red Gregory Birx, Kate Weir and Marisha Seraphin for ITN productions. Our production manager is Emily Jarvis. Our executive producer is Rabina Pabani for Sony Music Entertainment. Our executive producer is Kathryn St. Louis.