Catch Him if You Can
March came from nothing. Now, he’s the 1%. He made his fortune in oil and cryptocurrency. He’s sweet, handsome and charming. It’s hard to believe he’s still single. Only, it isn’t. Because March isn’t real. He’s a border-hopping Canadian con artist who’s tricked women and men out of over a million dollars. He thought he was untouchable, but now he’s messed with the wrong women. From Pink Moon Studio, this is Catch Him if You Can. The story of Marcel Vautour, his survivors' real time crusade to catch him, and the broken legal system that’s allowed him to get away for over 20 years – told in 7 parts. Written and produced by Emilia King and Maggie Reid. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @catchhimpod
Catch Him if You Can
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Pink Moon Studio Producers Emilia and Maggie sit down with Jodi, Kym and Andréa to hear updates on the status of the case, just as another active tip comes in about March’s whereabouts. And a victim from over 20 years ago comes forward to tell her story. This is not the end.
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SPEAKER_02March Votour is the 1%. He made his fortune in oil and cryptocurrency. He's handsome, charming, and has a heart of gold. It's hard to believe he's still single. Only it isn't. Because March isn't real. He's a serial grifter and romance con artist who's tricked women and men across Canada, the US, Vietnam, and the Czech Republic out of over a million dollars. And that's just what we know of. His trail of destruction has led to heartbreak, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and even PTSD.
SPEAKER_10How could you not be a psychopath? How could you ruin so many people's lives and not care and walk away? It's dark evil.
SPEAKER_07Romance fraud, business fraud, investment fraud, medical fraud.
SPEAKER_00You know, they say a really good liar puts some truths in there to make it easier and make the story more believable because he has conviction about that because he knows it's true.
SPEAKER_07He goes by Marcel, he goes by Mark with an M-A-R-C, an M-A-R-K. He goes by Andre, he also goes by Dre. We know him to go by Andy, we know him to go by Martin. We know him to go by March. I think he has a character that he's built for each one of them.
SPEAKER_11He doesn't work. This is his job. He is good at what he does. Hey, you know what? Problem. You're good at what you do. But we're we're good at what we do too. And we're gonna get you.
SPEAKER_02My name is Amelia King, and this is Catch Em If You Can. And this, episode seven, is the final one for season one of this podcast. You've probably realized by now that one of the major problems with this case isn't necessarily finding Marcel. It's what happens once he's found. It's the problems with the criminal justice system, the lack of cooperation between police departments, and the seeming indifference police show to these crimes, or at least to particular victims of these crimes. We caught up with Jody, Kim, and Andrea on May 11th to discuss what's happening with the case. Chapter 7, Pal Fang, which means not the end. Alright, we've got Maggie, we've got Jody, we've got Kim, Andrea, and myself. So where we leave off in the show, ladies, is the September 2020 situation with Andre and Fan. Do you want to kind of bring us up to speed in terms of what's happened since that case, since that situation?
SPEAKER_08It was really disappointing, actually, because we had him in real time texting Fan and that and being able to see the con happening. We got them to go and do a police report, and we did have the fraud department of Scarborough involved. Anytime that I tried to call to see what was going on, I was poo-pooed from the police and told that it has nothing to do with me. I'm not involved with the case, even though we try to give the background to the detectives. And then, of course, you know, the letdown of not being able to get him where we wanted him so that we could actually get him arrested. So that was that was a real disappointing time. So then coming back, it just felt like another defeat on our part because we keep getting these tips like we did before, like with Jody in the Naimo and the police not kind of doing anything. When I chatted with the police, they just didn't care or they wouldn't answer the phone. At one time, I had to block my phone number because they knew who it was calling in. I blocked my phone number and they were like, Oh, is this Kim again? I told you that they'll get back to you, he's not on anymore. So there was nothing being proactively done. And the fact that puzzles me is that he was impersonating a government official, and somehow they didn't find that urgent. Like, put the fraud aside, put the taking away of money aside. We have somebody who's impersonating a government official, and we the police are saying that this is not important. Like he's trying to give them permanent residency and you know, pretending to be this government official.
SPEAKER_02So, since that happened, what's happened with the case? Jody, what's happened sort of over in your corner?
SPEAKER_12I'm really frustrated. It's just, you know, constant being put on the back burner, not being taken seriously. Promises are made, and just seems like months go by and I don't hear anything. And then when they do connect with me, they're full of promises, and yes, this is what we're doing, we're going ahead with this. And then months go on again. And finally, I actually sent them an email last week and just said, you know what, enough is enough. Like, you know, shit or get off the pot, basically. It's been over four years, and even though it's not a murder case or a weapons case, it's still a criminal case. I'm tired of being a file in a pile.
SPEAKER_06When that constable, Jody, said that he was going to take your case seriously and said, Well, I'm gonna work on this case full time. And can you talk about that and what ended up happening there?
SPEAKER_12He called me and he said that he had been assigned to my case and that he would be with me till the end. You know, my case would never leave his roster, and that he was an ally to me and that he was, you know, gonna see it through. He was excellent. Like he kept me up to date. He accomplished a lot. In December, I got a call that he had to hand it over to somebody else. And I just really felt like I lost my ally. Like I had to go back in and just retell my story again, redo another statement, meet someone new, explain something new to somebody else. So now it's like I'm on my sixth officer and it's just, you know it's exhausting. It's emotional, it's draining. It re-victimizes me. Like I said before, like even just having to pay the money back every single month, you know, go dark for a couple of days because you're exhausted from working your ass off to pay off a debt that's not even yours. It frustrates me that I have to think about this every single month, just with even paying money back, checking emails all the time to see if there's been any updates and you know, they go dark. And then when I raise shit, then they, you know, there's a little bit of a fluster of activity and then it goes dark again. And it's like, do your fucking job. That's that's all I want. Like, I just want the same attention that, you know, it's so frustrating for me to go on, you know. I I keep checking like BC Crime Stoppers or something to see, you know, maybe they've done it and they just haven't notified me. And then I go on there and it's like theft of a bike. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? And they have a warrant. And I'm thinking, I bet you that the people that had the bike stolen paid $200 deductible for insurance and got a better bike out of the deal. And there's a warrant out for this homeless person that's riding around on a bike, and the people that had the bike stolen have already replaced their bike through insurance. Like, why is that happening? And then someone like me, who has $45,000 taken from me, and I have so much information that could produce numerous charges, and I'm just thrown on the wayside. They just don't care.
SPEAKER_02Just as we were getting ready to record this episode, we received a tip about Marcel's whereabouts. This is the first time we've had an active tip since 2020. This time he's back in BC with a protege conning a single mother.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, so I reached out to her. She was really she was quite nervous and scared at first because it had just it was very fresh. Turns out he had been living in her driveway in his car, a 2008 Chevy Uplander that he had converted the back into bunk beds. He had a younger guy with him that he seemed to be kind of mentoring into this type of crime, and they were just staying in her yard.
SPEAKER_02Apparently, Marcel stayed there for three months. There were no attempts at romance. This time he was focused on an investment scheme.
SPEAKER_12Trying to get them to invest in storage lockers to resell, like buy and sell storage locker content. And they said that he was doing a lot of that, where he would buy these abandoned storage lockers and then he would go to a flea market, sell the product, and then from the money that he made there, he would go downtown and he would buy better stuff from the homeless that had stolen stuff, so like mixed masters, bikes, all that kind of stuff. And then he would go back to the flea markets or sell them on like Khajiji or whatever for a bigger profit. He managed to get three cell phone plans out of her that he said he needed for his company and for his workers. So, there again, we have like three different cell phone plans that I guided her through how, like, go, you know, pull your records because we've got access now to his his phone records while he was under your plan. He stole her car. He stole her, she had a 2019 Hyundai Tucson that was currently not insured because it needed some repair work and her warranty had run out. She's only 25. She has two kids, one with disabilities. I think she's been dealt a pretty hard hand in in life and you know, just trying to pull herself out of some bad situations. And yeah, he she came home and her car was gone. So whether he flipped it or sold it for parts to, you know, quick cash, it wasn't insured.
SPEAKER_02It took Jody almost a week to convince her to file a police report. She was terrified.
SPEAKER_12She actually drove up to Kelowna and met me one weekend, and I went through a bunch of stuff with her, showed her how to download all those phone records, and we phoned a few numbers just to get a few ideas. And there were lots of Hyundai dealerships. There was corporate registries in Edmonton, Alberta. And he he bolted the Thursday before the Easter long weekend and completely destroyed her home security system before he left so that like any footage of him would be destroyed. You know, I instructed her to contact the security company and try to get back records of all the video footage. I think the card that he stole, it's probably sitting in some lot down in Vancouver somewhere that he probably just forged her signature and sold it for 10 grand, saying that it needed some repair work. And he took the money and she didn't report it till almost 10 days after it had happened. So he probably just forged her signature. So yeah, we know he's driving around in a Chevy Uplander, and he's got a big last known look for him was a big bushy beard that he's obviously dying black. Glasses or no? Glasses. Yep, he has glasses on, still wears his hats, you know, still likes the Tim Hortons. Same thing. Few different stories, you know, saying now that he was, you know, in Vietnam, he was in jail, uttered a few threats to her and her friends. So, you know, I think he's he's escalating. I think that he's looking over his shoulder. Like I think he's his world's getting smaller and smaller, and he's worried. I think with the podcast coming out and the stories that have come out and his face plastered all over the internet. He's just he's desperate. He's desperate. And you know, I mean that part of that scares me because I I think that there is potential for violence. He kept telling these this girl and her friends that uh everyone bleeds red. That's what he said. Yeah, everyone bleeds red, and I'm not afraid to kill. And he claimed that he had killed numerous people in Vietnam.
SPEAKER_02After speaking with the new victim, Jody tried to get the police to connect their cases since they're both in BC. Here's Kim on what happened.
SPEAKER_08Jody then goes and calls her local police and says, Well, we've we've got a, you know, we got a location on them. We've got this, this, and that. And they're like, Well, we can't even look at that file. It's got nothing to do with your case. So, how does a professional con man not have anything to do with other people's cases? If we had a national database where they could say, shit, man, this guy is a bad dude. We're gonna go after him, right? Well, we could tie all that together, but no, this is the story we get. It's like everything's compartmentalized and nobody wants to see the big picture, right? So I think just you know, that being mentioned, that the police again are like, there's nothing we can do. You're the police.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, exactly. If not you, then who?
SPEAKER_12And this new girl, the police basically tell her, Well, your car wasn't insured, so there's nothing really we can do about it. What? She told me she still owes $38,000 on the car. He knows the law. He knows what he can get away with, he studies it, he learns it, he knows when to take advantage of somebody, he knows his limitations, and he knows when to get out.
SPEAKER_02What in your minds, ladies, is the barrier to getting the police to take the cases seriously? There are so many of them, right, at this point. What's stopping them?
SPEAKER_08I think it's bigger than what we think it is, and they're um trying to wait for some more information in order to take down something maybe bigger than we know. They're protecting a system that's protecting white collar crime in some way on a deeper level. So, you know, they're like they're if fraud is gone, then, you know, and we only know that 5% is being reported in our situation, then what is it that they're trying to protect on a bigger scale? Or are they trying to protect some of the officers that haven't done their due diligence and they don't want to step in the shit? Those are my thoughts that go through my head. To me, it's negligent.
SPEAKER_09Well, I think all of us feel that uh one of the problems is the lack of law, you know, relating to these issues. You know, if we we have to really look deeper than that. We have to understand why the law is the way the law is. And I I truly believe that the lack of law is caused by the lack of value placed on women and minorities. Only 5% of people report this crime. So 107,000 people reported it. And so if that's only 5%, that means 2.14 million people were frauded in 2021. That reported it. So the number of victims reported were 68,000. So that means 1.36 million people in Canada only were victims. Then they reported a $381 million loss. That's only 5%. So that works out to $7.6 billion.
SPEAKER_02We spoke with a former RCMP officer, turned private investigator, who we're leaving anonymous since he's actively working on the case, about why he thinks these cases aren't taken seriously.
SPEAKER_04The police don't have the manpower, you know, often it's the manpower, to investigate this whole thing across the country. Because we're dealing with multiple police departments, federal, provincial, and also municipal. So they don't really like to talk to each other. I mean, we know what we get that in Vancouver. You see that as in some cases a competition, they want to be the one that's going to be getting the hit. There is conflict between federal police force and municipal police force. The exact reason why I'm still trying to figure it out. I mean, it's a territory type thing, and which is sad because then they don't share information. This is why you see some cases don't get solved, and that's the scary part.
SPEAKER_02Back to the ladies.
SPEAKER_09We have to consider other things too that like the volume of fraud being committed and the lack of resources and the lack of connections between the provinces and the lack of police, you know, interagencies, you know, speaking to each other.
SPEAKER_12What does an RCMP stand for? Like if we if if it's jurisdictional and you guys had them in Toronto, there was a warrant in Quebec four hours away from where Andre was at the time, and they didn't care. You know, like why why are they not communicating? Like they have they have the CPIC that tells them, oh, he's got warrants here and he's got warrants there.
SPEAKER_02A note for our listeners CPIC stands for the Canadian Police Information Center. It's a national information sharing system that links law enforcement across the country and is managed by the RCMP.
SPEAKER_12But why can't they overstep that border of, you know, BC to Alberta to Ontario? Like Royal Canadian represents Canada. Why are they divided by sections and saying, oh, I can't step on their toes because they're in New Brunswick? Well, no, it's still RCMP. Just get your shit together and have like a task force that deals with this and put all these crimes together and look at the bigger picture.
SPEAKER_02It's also because police lack the expertise to handle fraud cases, which leads to them being offloaded from the criminal system to the civil one.
SPEAKER_04Recently, since the past maybe four years, we haven't had police departments sending us people because they are not dealing with civil cases, nor do they have the knowledge to deal with the cases, right? So they they can't take the in the fraud specifically. They will send us people saying, and there's this big umbrella now, this big basket, I call it the big basket, that everything falls into the civil side. It's a good way to write it up on the stats, says this is not a criminal case. So then you clear your file, it looks good, right? Percentage of clearance of file is very important for police departments. So if you can't solve all your files, it looks good when you're hired by the city. But we're seeing a lot more cases being pushed to the civil side when really fraud is fraud. Fraud is a criminal entity, right? Fraud is a criminal charge, but it's being pushed now that people should sue the person because they don't want to proceed with the fraud case. Sometimes some police departments have one or two guys working on the fraud department. That's it. So can you imagine their caseload? We have to hire the computer specialist to work with us. You know, even the as us as an investigator. I'm pretty versed into computer crime and cybercrime. But when it's beyond my expertise, then we have to subcontract. And some police departments are considering that now to subcontract to cyber specialists and computer specialists. Like I said, most police departments don't do a one-person case. I mean, it starts at a million dollars. I mean, that's it is it just breaks my heart. And this is why, as private investigators, we're busy because we'll take those cases and get to the bottom of it and we'll tell that person, you know, we'll get them into court and you need to reimburse that that person. And we don't give up. The police department. I mean, if you got 30 files, 50 files to work on. When I was on a shift on the RCMP on a Friday night, I'd get 32 to 40 cases. How am I supposed to do those? And that's it's it's not a bad intent from their part, it's that they are overwhelmed. The criminals are good at what they do. And they in the case of Marcel, he travels, he travels across the country. So he goes, one police department is looking for him in Victoria, then he's in Alberta. Well, Victoria is Victoria City Police, Alberta is the RCMP, Calgary is Calgary Police Department, Toronto is Toronto Metro, OPP, and you get all those police force involved, and nobody talks to each other. What happens then?
SPEAKER_02We also spoke with Jeff Thompson, a senior RCMP intelligence analyst at the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center. Examining these types of cases is basically his job. He understands the unique challenges presented by nomadic serial fraudsters like Marcel.
SPEAKER_01Certainly we've seen sort of these serial fraudsters that bounce from one jurisdiction to another across Canada. And it's difficult to track them down, you know, right? So you're trying to keep track of where they're going, where they're gonna pop up next. And they're using tactics because they know people are looking for them, I guess, at the end of the day, right? So I mean they're crossing jurisdictions, crossing policing jurisdictions, they're traveling, living with other people, you know, changing phone numbers again. So it's so so it becomes difficult. It takes time in a lot of cases to to track them down. I do believe, you know, over time everybody does, you know, they they they do eventually get caught. In general, you know, you can speak to capacity of policing, you know, where I'd love to see an officer for every report we get, you know, romance scams alone last year. You know, we were we were upwards of uh over a thousand reports with eight hundred and thirty-three of them being victims reporting more than twenty-four million in losses. Yeah, so it's it's there's you know, that's just romance scams, right? That's that's what I'm talking about. So there's all the other frauds that occur as well. So capacity definitely plays a role. You know, you you're talking about things like ease of capturing, evidence, viability of tracking down the subject. What other calls does that police services have on the goal when you reached out? You know, you know, is there a bank robbery happening? Is there a murder investigation happening? Is there a major drug operation going on, right? You know, so so I mean there's lots of factors that result in files being prioritized differently, right?
SPEAKER_02Here's the private investigator again.
SPEAKER_04And you know that the burden of proof in civil is based on the balance of probabilities, right? That's quite vague. And criminal is beyond reasonable doubt. That's way more profound. So based on the balance of probabilities on the civil side, this is why people go civil now, because common sense would tell you that you shouldn't do that. So that's easy to prove, civil. But in that case, when you're dealing with the burden of proof of beyond reasonable doubt, okay, did the story of the Frenchman make sense? You know, was he was he part of this and then he lost his money? Was he the judge starts asking questions, right? Was he in cahoot with you know, were they buddy and then one is mad at the other and wants his money back? It's all those questions. And sometimes they don't proceed for that purpose. So it's all based on the evidence.
SPEAKER_08Of course, in Jody's case, there is lots of evidence. None of us are in law enforcement, and all of us can get together and build a timeline of like 26 years or 27 years of this guy, find all these victims, put all these resources together, and we don't even have a legal background. What is wrong with this picture at the end of the day? Who is responsible? Obviously, they've put the responsibility on us in thinking that we'll just back down, that you know, we're just probably a bunch of weak women that we're taking advantage of, so we'll just go away. Like, bye-bye. No. Hello. Hello, we're here.
SPEAKER_02You can talk about police capacity, but how does that explain the lack of movement on Jody's case, where the ladies have served up evidence on a silver platter? Ultimately, one of the huge barriers to justice of these cases is the stigma surrounding romance fraud.
SPEAKER_12If anything, I want to prove that we are strong, independent, successful. Successful women. And you know, we weren't duped. We were con because he's a professional con artist. And it should not take away from who we are as individuals because it happened to us. Like, we're talking about, you know, healthcare professionals, fire captains, you know, physiotherapists. Like, we are all independent, strong, intelligent women who don't need men to, you know, support us. We all support ourselves. And you got this low life who literally has nothing. He has nothing. He is nothing. He has no family left because they have all written them off. So what has this guy got? He's got a make-believe life. Here's Jeff Thompson's take.
SPEAKER_01Romance scams are again is that when I talk about that trust, building that trust with the victims, right? So there's a they make a social and psychological connection with their victims, and they really want to profess their love, right? So once you start playing on somebody's emotions, we'll say, you know, love is an emotion, people start reacting, they may not be thinking straight, more likely to part with money. And especially if that trust is built up, you see a higher higher dollar loss. But when it comes to reporting, because of the stigma attached to to romance scams, that psychological, emotional harm that's been done, you know, it's it's devastating for victims. You know, in many cases we've seen, you know, they've they've lost their life savings, they've lost their house, they've lost everything, and then emotionally ruined once they find out it was a complete con, you know, like so there's that feeling of desperation, I guess. I I can't think of the right word right now, but you know, they might blame themselves. How could I have been so foolish, you know, and just again, emotionally and psychologically ruined in some cases, you know. We've we've seen suicides attached to to romance scams uh because of the dev devastation involved, and again, the stigma behind it as well. So that leads to reduced reporting rates as well.
SPEAKER_02Since this podcast came out, another victim came forward, a woman named Lisa from British Columbia. Marcel stole $27,000 from her over 20 years ago. And she is the only victim that we know of who got her money back through the criminal courts.
SPEAKER_05A few months ago, my husband and I were watching Netflix and we watched that Tindler Swindler, and that's when I felt like it just brought everything back about Marcel. And there were similarities, and I felt like I wonder like what's going on with Marcel, has he been caught? And so I just started Googling and then I came across this podcast, and that is when I contacted Amelia and thought, I need to tell my story, I need to see if I can help out in any way. And then as I started listening to to Kim and Jody, I felt like, oh my god, like still 20 years later, this this was still happening. And I just feel so awful that that the criminal system wasn't protecting them the way that that it protected me in the end.
SPEAKER_02Lisa's story really deserves its own episode.
SPEAKER_05So I met Marcel. He was working at a bar in Victoria, it was the year 2000. He was working as a bouncer and he worked a few nights a week doing that. Marcel was 24 and I was 25. I met him because my boyfriend at the time was working there as well, and it was a place that I like to hang out. And then when my boyfriend and I broke up, which I was upset about because he broke it off with me, Marcel was right there. And he was trying to be a friend and trying to comfort me and say that my boyfriend didn't deserve me and I could find someone better. And he basically uh just tried to make me feel better, and I had a lot more free time on my hands. So Marcel tried to occupy that free time, and he was a nice distraction. He's very uh chatty, personable. He could just sit and talk for hours. The two were never romantically involved.
SPEAKER_02With Lisa, Marcel claimed to have expert knowledge of the stock market and foolproof investment strategies that were gonna make him and one of his friends a ton of money.
SPEAKER_05I can't quite recall everything, but I do remember from what he told me, thinking to myself, oh my god, I have to give this guy money, like I have to invest in him. Just the way he would talk about how well and how successful I could be if I gave him money. But he didn't really ask me for money. It was more me thinking that I needed to invest with him because he kept talking about it all the time. And I think that's why he was so good at it, because he was just able to convince me with me thinking it was me that wanted to invest with him and his friend.
SPEAKER_02The way Lisa describes Marcel, so much of what he told her about his life in the year 2000 are things he is still telling his victims to this day. His alcoholic parents, his obsession with Tim Hortons, his Crohn's disease. He also drew up professional contracts for the money Lisa gave him to invest, promising high returns. At the time, Lisa had dreams of going back to school to become a nurse. After Marcel disappeared with Lisa's money, she was beside herself.
SPEAKER_05I don't know how to explain it, but you just feel completely empty and just full of shame and just extremely dark, like Jody said, just embarrassed, humiliated. How could I be so stupid? Nobody else would have fallen for this. How could I have done this? And I didn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I just um I didn't want to leave the house. I just became very depressed. I think I went down to about 99 pounds. I couldn't go to work, I was just too, too upset and just so numb. And it was just really, really hard. And I remember having to tell my parents. I had to tell somebody. And so I told my dad first because I thought he would be the one that would handle it better than my mom. And he was calm and he said, We'll go to the police. So my dad set up an appointment with the Saanich police. He took the day off work and we went down there and I told them everything that happened, the detectives that we were assigned, and I had to do a photo lineup, and they presented me with eight different pictures. And I identified Marcel and I did a victim impact statement, and they told me that he had a criminal past, he had, I think, theft in New Brunswick, somewhere like that. And they asked me if I was in a romantic relationship with him, and I said no. And then they also asked me about when we were at the bank at the Canada Trust and the Toronto Dominion because they were gonna get the footage of both of those banks, and they ended up being able to get that from each bank to see that Marcel was there with me, and everything that I could give them, I gave it to them. And so then they ended up sending everything over to the Crown, and a Canada wide warrant got issued for Marcel's arrest, and of course, nobody knew where he was at the time.
SPEAKER_02Getting a Canadawide Warrant has been something the ladies have been relentlessly pushing for in Jody's case, and we're told time and time again that it's reserved for more serious crimes. Here's the PI again.
SPEAKER_04If you have a good judge in Kelowna, I'm hoping, I'm praying that it will give her a Canada Wide Warrant. But provincial judge are not big on giving those, he has to go to Supreme Court judge, Canada Ward Warrant are generally based on very violent crimes like a murder and something like that. I'm not sure if that's gonna have enough me. Maybe the multiple victims may cause them to give them that. So I just don't want him to be disappointed, and it it breaks my heart. The provincial warrant is issued by a provincial judge. The Canada Ward Warrant is issued by a Supreme Court judge, but you need more grounds, right? But what they could say is that he could have a provincial warrant. But he could be returnable to BC. And they don't do them very often anymore because it's too costly to put them on the plane. So it's a cost issue. It's not sad, but it's a cost issue where he's in Ontario, he shows up as wanted in BC, but they don't arrest him because it'd take too much money to send him back.
SPEAKER_02The way Lisa describes getting the Canada Wide Warrant, it just sounds like it was the natural progression of her case.
SPEAKER_05But the police told me that what had to happen was basically nobody's gonna be out there like actively looking for Marcel. But when he gets caught doing something, then it will he'll be fled and he'll be brought back to BC to face this. So I kept calling the police station in New Brunswick, the town where his family was from. Do you have Marcel there? Have you caught him? Has he done anything? And they knew who he was, but they'd say no. Try again. We try again next month. We don't, we don't have him, we haven't seen him, and everywhere was just a dead end. And then seven years later, in 2007, I get a letter from the Crown saying that my Canada-wide warrant is about to expire. And if I want to renew it, I need to write another victim impact statement. So I ended up doing that because I still, even though I had got on with my life, this still really haunted me and really affected me, like who I could trust. The police suggested that I declare bankruptcy. And so I had to go with my dad to a trustee and declare bankruptcy. So my credit that was really good for someone who was 25, I had always paid my bills on time, basically went in the hole. And that just made me feel like I hit rock bottom. And I felt like I'm never gonna be able to get a loan, a house, nothing. And I just felt like my life was just crushed and that he just couldn't care less what he did. And I just, it was just mind-boggling to me, like the times that we did spend hanging out, how you could just do that to someone and the conversations we did have. I thought that he was a friend. And I just I still can't get over how someone can do that to someone else. And so in 2007, I wrote my impact statement, hoping that it would be renewed. I wasn't ready to give up on this even seven years later. So I wrote how it had affected me still, and luckily they renewed it. And then in 2009, I guess I had heard that they caught Marcel for speeding and in another province. And because of the warrant, he was flown back to Victoria. The courts were trying to reach me, and unfortunately, they they couldn't. I had moved, but Marcel was flown into court and custody here, and the crown went through my whole case against him. And he was on the witness stand, and and she told me later that he said that all the money that I gave him went into drugs and went up his nose, and he felt terrible and just horrible about the whole thing. And he sincerely apologized for ruining my life at the time, and how he was a changed man and he had kids and a wife, and he worked in Alberta on the oil fields, and he was just a different person now, and he just felt terrible. And so the Crown prosecutor got a hold of me and said all of this, and and I guess because nine years had passed and I just forgive people.
SPEAKER_02The prosecutor told Lisa that Marcel claimed the money went to drugs and that he felt horrible about it all. He said he turned his life around now. He had a wife and kids and worked in Alberta on the oil fields. We know how this story goes.
SPEAKER_05I don't know if I ever completely forgave him, but I felt like okay, he got into drugs, and I know that happens to people, and he's a better person now. He's got children, a wife, he's working, he's changed his life. That was so many years ago, and what happened with me was just a brief moment in time. And I thought it ended shortly after me, and he had changed his life. So I kind of felt like I wish that I had seen him face to face and he would have said that to me in person. And also the court, the judge had ruled that he had to pay me back, and he had to pay me back money every month until he paid me back. I think it was $500 a month for it was up to about a total of about $17,000. The judge figured was was fair for the pain and everything I'd been through. And so Marcel was sending me through the court, he had to send it to the court office, and then the court office would send it to me a check. And so I was getting these checks for $500 a month, and that lasted for about seven, eight months, and then he stopped. Basically, in his probation, it said that if he stopped, he would go to jail, and he disappeared, and nobody knew where he was. And that went on, I think, for about eight months, ten months, a year, something like that. And then I got a letter from the court saying we have a large check for you. Got it right here. It says, We've received a large sum of money and payment of restitution on the above file. We have not been in contact with you for some time, and we would like you to call and confirm your address or pick up the check before I send this money to you. So I called the courthouse and they said we have a check from Marcel for $12,770. And I couldn't believe it. I felt like, oh my god, he actually came through. And I don't know what happened for those eight or 10 months, but he he worked his ass off and he is paying me back. Wow. So I ran off to the courthouse the next day excited and and got the check. And then that was kind of like my closure, and I just thought, okay, this is the end of it, and now he's got his family and he's working, and I just I kind of thought, you know, maybe he got laid off for those eight months, and that's why he stopped paying. And then he started working again, and he did everything he could to pay me back.
SPEAKER_02Lisa's case tells us that a Canada-wide warrant is not only possible, but also the most likely catalyst for Marcel's capture. We asked Lisa why she thinks she was able to get a Canada-wide warrant.
SPEAKER_05They decided on my behalf that it was going to be Canada-wide. I I didn't know anything about BC warrants versus Canada Wide, but they felt quite compelled with my story. But I do remember they asked me explicitly, have you been in any romantic relationship with Marcel? And I said no. And that was a big question that they put a lot of importance to. And I don't know if that makes a difference, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_02The stigma associated with romance cons plays a major role here.
SPEAKER_04There's also another variable that she's going to be dealing with in this in this case was the money given voluntarily because she was in love. You gave him the money. It was volunteer, there is no fraud.
SPEAKER_02I think, too, what's so complicated in the situation that, you know, what happened to you ladies is the fact that romance fraud is just a bucket, right? Because, for example, in your case, Jody, there's so many criminal charges that can fall under it, but it's the burden of proof that then is so difficult because again, they don't take it seriously because then they go, Oh, well, you were in a relationship. But to your point, like you mentioned in your your, I was gonna say your episode, Jody, but just as you've mentioned in the past, you know, rape by deception, for example, is a very, very real thing. You would have never been in a relationship with this absolute douchebag monster. Never.
SPEAKER_12And that in itself causes me so much like stress and anxiety and PTSD, because now I know who he is. And I know that like the person that he was when he was with me was completely false. So, you know, the more I learn about him and the more I, you know, hear other stories, it just pushes me further down into like depression and PTSD of like holy shit, like I was literally with an absolute fucking scumbag. Like it it grosses me out and it just, you know, I just I struggle with intimacy now, I struggle with like trust issues, I I just it's just completely, completely destroyed my whole like thought process. And yeah, it's not fun. I really do believe that that rape by deception needs to be brought into Canada and really taken seriously because that's what it was. It, you know, he violated me by deceiving me into believing that he was somebody that he wasn't. And, you know, to to find out that he, you know, hired an escort the night before I went to go visit him, disgusting, like just disgusting. Like, and and that's the shit I have to live with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And we we did do some research on the rape by deception charge and how it's there is such a charge in Canada, but its interpretation is very restricted and limited to situations, for example, where a man secretly removes a condom, you know, and thereby, you know, deceiving that woman um in that situation. So it's really been applied restrictively in those ways, but in other just jurisdictions like you're talking about, Jody, it's got a much wider application. So if we had something like that here, that could be very, very helpful because yeah, and role like it's so it's so complicated because just having a relationship, there's no criminal charge with that, right? And again, it's the burden of proof that then comes up against us.
SPEAKER_09Completely is impersonating somebody else. It's all a hundred percent for manipulating somebody into rendering their assets and and money, and to have a relationship with the person is how he's doing it. So it's uh that that's definitely rape by deception. And um, you know, they should widen, broaden the category because it is such a a hot topic now, you know, people are coming forward more now, and you know, it's like it's bust out into the into the mainstream of uh media and everything because uh it's like people weren't aware of it and now all of a sudden they are.
SPEAKER_06There's so many parallels between how you've all been treated by the justice system and sexual assault cases, right? Because it's always, always, every time there's a sexual assault charge, and they, you know, oh well, it's difficult to prove. And then people are asked, well, how much did you drink? What were you wearing? You know, all of these questions that put the onus on the victim to essentially provide an explanation for their own victimization.
SPEAKER_12Well, it's exactly the same. You know, when I went to report, the very first question was, you know, well, were you in a relationship with them? Well, what does that matter if I was in a relationship with them? What's on the table right now? What's on the table right now is that I'm I'm out forty-five thousand dollars and this guy's vanished, you know. And then within within the first two days of me reporting the crime, I had an officer call me and say, Yeah, it's your get it's your word against TIS, so we're closing the file. And I'm like, Yeah, no, you're not. And he's like, Yeah, your your file's closed unless you can prove to me that there's something there. So for the first six months of after it happened, my my case was closed until Kim and I met. And then we discovered, you know, the the check. We basically did all the work for them, like up until the point of them, you know, taking it more seriously. It would everything that we gave them, Kim and I and Andrea had done it ourselves and just said, here you go, here you go. And when I went in with the check and like to said to them, we know that it was a fake check. Here's the order form for the fake check, here's the number to call the person to get the information. That's when they started saying, Okay, yeah, we'll take it more seriously now when your case is back open. But they, you know, they originally were like, Well, it's you know, it's your fault. Like, you're the one who got duped. Like, what do you want us to do about it?
SPEAKER_02Your persistence is inspirational and it's actually extraordinary, right? It's out of out of the ordinary. Because like we see with the other uh people who have been frauded by Marcel, like Marjolaine, for example. Ladies, when I went to Quebec, when we went to Quebec and we picked up all those documents, this woman has meticulous documents of every single transaction that happened. And yet what happened in that.
SPEAKER_08And a closer case.
SPEAKER_02Closed, closed. Case was closed. Nobody's looking for it, right? She's just another worker from Drummondville and the file in the pile. Another huge issue here is that the police are not looking at the totality of Marcel's crimes. They may look small individually, but this is exactly what allows him to get away with it. I don't remember which one of you had brought this up earlier, but something like I I think maybe it was you, Andrea, like a uh similar to a sex offender list, right? Why isn't there a serial fraudster list? And maybe that would be able to kind of loop together all those disparate crimes, if there was something like that that existed.
SPEAKER_09They should be able to stack their fraud cases too. So say we have say the limit for to make them go to jail for like a year is $25,000 loss. We should be able to stack five cases.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally. And I'm sure there's police reports that we don't even know about in in his case that have just not turned into not materialized into warrants, right? Just like is the situation here. Yeah. It's just, you know, it's the burden of proof again. And it's the um the motivation to keep going and pushing for getting that warrant, which like we talked about before, a lot of people just they don't have because they feel dejected. They're afraid. Like in Faye's case, she was very scared. Her and her mom were like, nope, we're not going to pursue this. Marjolaine just felt like this destroyed my life. I don't want to keep going. And we keep seeing that repeated, repeated, repeated. So that's and he knows that's that's kind of how he gets away with it. He knows about the loopholes in the system.
SPEAKER_09Well even just to have a list a motivation for people not to commit that crime to have their picture and have their name up on something saying who they are and what they've been doing. So that helps out a bit there. It's empowering for the victims as well.
SPEAKER_08And you know just to say maybe involving the CRA, you know, like saying like we need to watch this guy the CRA is above the law. Like why isn't the CRA involved in that right?
SPEAKER_02Another change that would help immensely in these cases is better cooperation from the banks.
SPEAKER_12And even with technology with like the banks now and you know everything is primarily done by e-transfers, like the law hasn't caught up on that too. Like even just trying to get them to understand that even though there were e-transfers involved, it was still fraud. But you know like for me to go into the bank and they're saying well it's your fault you got to pay all the money back. Your your banks are all seized and shut down until the money's paid back they just they made me the I was the one who was in the wrong. They weren't sympathetic with me at all. Like if anything I left there feeling like that I'd been like violated again because I was like, okay, like I don't know what's going on here. I'm in shock because this you know person that I was dating just vanished and all my accounts are overdrawn and now the bank's like basically giving me shit because I let it happen and it's my fault. So it's like you're getting you know completely you know bashed around because they don't have enough like stuff in the laws to say okay if technology's allowing for e-transfers now we have to we have to come up and and bring that up to you know standards to say yeah that includes fraud.
SPEAKER_08When Jody had her check and you know we looked at the check and everything it was obviously it was a handwritten check for a large amount. So that should have been one trigger by the bank. The second one was the amount I mean now when you go into a bank and you deposit 10,000 they want to know I got a call I had money transferred into my account. I got a call just like a month ago from my bank manager saying can you tell me what this transfer was was this an inheritance was this they're they're tracking my $10,000 right the third part is that the company doesn't exist. It took me three minutes to go online and look for incorporated or businesses in Alberta to see that that business doesn't exist. And these checks are you know checking with the checking company like where is the responsibility and the onus on the the the you know the banks not doing their due diligence on something like this. It makes absolutely no sense. And then for them to go and offer a payout to Jody like so they're admitting fault but they're admitting only a tiny bit of fault because it's really Jody's fault, right? Really and you're looking at the check and it's like okay like why did that not banking? That makes no sense to me at all. Here's the PI again.
SPEAKER_04I go after banks all the time because Andrea may not have two pennies to rub together but the banks and the money transfer companies have a fiduciary duty to protect the customer. Their argument is always like no no it was your right to make sure you were sending the money to this right person or for the right reason. No no no you should have made sure that this person that she was sending it to is not a fraudster. So I get into this argument on a regular basis with the banks.
SPEAKER_02There's also the issue of how to penalize serial fraudsters.
SPEAKER_09I think it should also provide progressive discipline for the people so you're caught once you get you know this punishment second time it's more third time it's more and then I believe that they should monitor them after they get out. So I think they should have a monitor on their cell phones and their internet and their locations and their bank accounts and most importantly when they have to pay money back you monitor where that source is coming from because we know from our case so much that merch has taken money from one victim and paid off the other victim so he doesn't have to go to jail. A list and a structure of how to um discipline these repeat offenders would be the a great solution you know to the problem.
SPEAKER_02Even in cases like Lisa's where the banks cooperate the police take the case seriously and Marcel is forced to pay her back the fact that Marcel can continue conning to stay out of jail makes it difficult for Lisa to get past what happened or to feel like justice has actually been served.
SPEAKER_05At first I was naive and I thought that what he said in court was he was working in Alberta and Fort McMurray and working on these oil rigs like he said he was and he was a family man now like he said and I believed him again. And I guess we just want to believe the good in people and now I think I really feel awful. I think the money came from from someone else that he conned or several other people I I don't even know. But I don't think that he made worked for that money. Honestly I didn't even think of that at first. It wasn't until I started listening to the podcast and hearing more stories that he more people he's conned that it hit me that that's what he had done because he has never stopped doing this since I met him.
SPEAKER_02We wish we were ending this episode with better news. We wish we could tell you that Marcel Andre Vautour was behind bars, that he had to pay back his victims that he couldn't leisurely enjoy a Tim Horton's double double anytime soon. But like with so many other true crime stories before it the problems with the criminal justice system persist. But so do Jody, Kim, and Andrea.
SPEAKER_09What keeps the three of you going it keeps me going that there's victims out there that's that he's continuing on so he needs to be stopped. So that like that's a primary thing. You know justice would be nice but uh I I I fear for other people and uh I think you know everything happens in your life for a reason and I think we were all brought together for a reason and karma will come and get him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Jody Kim what keeps you going?
SPEAKER_12For me it's just yeah I want to see him caught I want to see him stopped. I want to see like I just I want to see justice. I want to be able I want my day in court to say you know what it it was a it's a criminal crime. I'm not I'm not giving up on that I'm not gonna take no for an answer like it was a criminal crime. I don't care that it wasn't as severe as murder or you know weapons or whatever but there was a crime and he needs to be held accountable and he continues to do it and he's been doing it for you know three decades. It's a joke to him. It's just a joke to him take bits and pieces from everybody that he's ripped off and use it as in future stories. The latest victim saying that you know he told her that why bring other people's stuff into your story just to make it look better it's almost like he's mocking us.
SPEAKER_09Another thing that really gets keeps me going is the fact that he's picking on vulnerable people and that makes me mad.
SPEAKER_08So we're gonna stand together we're gonna stand strong and we're gonna get him Kim what about you what keeps you going well I think a lot of a lot to do with the vulnerability too like I've always been an advocate for the sort of the vulnerable populations um uh through my lifetime and and in the work I do. But also I think that we need to be a voice for the people that are ashamed and are feeling not confident enough or don't have the strength because you know they've been you know pushed down too far. So for me it's having a voice for other people and it's also creating an awareness for the general public so that they understand that you know that it's okay to have a voice to come forward that you can like you can have the strength to do this and and and I think that by sharing you know like Jody sharing how it's caused her to go dark for a couple days and be depressed that even though you have those days you can still keep fighting and collectively like maybe over time and hopefully over time I would you know want to be optimistic but of course history hasn't showed itself that way but that we can change things that we can change laws that we can start getting the responsibility being put on majority women but just people that are vulnerable have the banks be held responsible these people these big corporations that are big making big money the police force are you know being held responsible for being essentially negligent for not doing their job.
SPEAKER_09I want to tell the viewers that you know we are all strangers to start and then you know I got these tips on the website and the girls from BC Jody and Kim they go right over and help this these girls more than once like different different victims they go right over and help them. So you know if you've been brought in and you have you feel down and think about these people and how they are going well above and their their goodness supersedes merch's badness and other roster's badness and also Pink Moon Studios when the the uh students got ripped off they offered one of the students a work term otherwise his schooling would have gone in the toilet so they're stellar too so there's always good people we and they outshine the bad people.
SPEAKER_08And yeah no I think I think that's so nice Andrea because I think that we're all we all come with good hearts that have been in this situation. We all come from a giving and we all like want to see the best in people and that's unfortunately what kind of got us where we are but at the same time it brought us all together to remind us that exactly like you said that we are good people and we're all out there to help one another so if there are more victims come forward man come forward we'll we're here for you.
SPEAKER_12And for me it was like you know when it first happened to me I just never felt so alone and ashamed in my entire life. I'm surprised I made it to be honest like there were I had so many dark days that like I am really surprised I made it and I couldn't have gotten to where I am now without the support of all of you guys. And you know like I consider all of you like very dear friends to me now like you know I I've gained so much I don't think of it as a loss anymore because I've gained friendships and support and unity like you can't take that away from me now. It get it helps get rid of the hurt knowing that you guys are all like you got my back and I got your back and and whoever else comes forward like you know even to hear from you know we got a message and a nice letter and I've had actually a phone conversation with one of his very first victims back in 2000 the girl that got the you know got him charged and you know Lisa and she you know what a wonderful wonderful human being and you know she she struggles to this day she got her money back and I mean but she still struggles because she knows that money just came from another victim.
SPEAKER_09Money's part of it but it's the betrayal and the the uh the whole emotional aspect of it and the whole game of it just just an evil person so but you can't let that change you in your personality and you in your life and your perspective because you can't let people like that win.
SPEAKER_08Any parting thoughts? I I have a couple of uh comments that I I kind of wanted to finish with and that was if there's any lawyers out there that want to step forward and help us uh maneuver through this case I've reached out to a couple lawyers and it seems like you know it always takes time for people to get back. If there's anybody that has some insight and if there's any other victims that are out there that want to come forward even if they don't want to share their name or but they want to contribute to they've had a case that's been closed and they feel like they're being treated uh in injustice you know it's like an injustice to their to their case and what's happened to them I think it's you know I hope you're listening and I hope that you you know want to come forward and uh be part of this I want to say revolution but you know but whatever we want to call it we're you know making some change you know for the for the world and for the community so for me I just want to you know I just want to if I had to say anything I would I would want to say to the police that uh you know do your job do your job take it seriously do your job and and that goes to Crown counsel too like do your job follow through with the charges and look at the charges collectively across Canada and do your job.
SPEAKER_12I have to do my job every day so do your job and follow through. Don't just like say words to get someone off the phone or over four years for me waiting. All you're doing is re-victimizing me every time you call me and say yeah you know I haven't had a chance to work on your file yet you're just re-victimizing me. So enough's enough just do your job.
SPEAKER_02Andrea any any parting thoughts anything you want to add?
SPEAKER_09I don't know maybe just to the people that criticize the victims you're really you're really hurting and re-traumatizing the victims and you're supporting the con artist so have a little more empathy. I think the reason why Lisa's case was so was successful was because she found somebody in charge was compassionate and somebody in charge cared. So I think uh we just need to find somebody like that for us. So hopefully if somebody can help us they'll come and help us.
SPEAKER_12Well it's like I said I said before Andre it and I've said to the police it takes one person. It just takes one person.
SPEAKER_11Just take it seriously.
SPEAKER_08March if you're listening keep looking over your back I hope you don't sleep I hope you don't rest I hope that you are in panic mode all the time and you are looking over your back and you are shit and break like Jody said and you're you're just scared as shit because you know what we are coming for you.
SPEAKER_12We are and you know what if he's listening right now I hope I hope he's listening right now. And you know what you're pretty fucking stupid dude because we know you go to Tim Hortons we know you spend your summers in Toronto we know you spend your winters in BC we know you have a safe spot in Calgary we know you have a safe spot in Toronto. Like you're fucking stupid because it's pattern it's re repetition. So you know for for three women who were so to speak duped we're doing an awfully good job of figuring out how this guy functioned and how he you know he does what he does.
SPEAKER_02And to our listeners if you have any information about Marcel Andre Vautur, his whereabouts maybe you knew him for a little while grew up with him encountered him on your travels send us your tips at catchempod.com That's it for season one of this podcast there's so much more to this tale than we've been able to tell in this season. Marcel's cons in Vietnam, the US, Thailand, and so much more this is not the end of this story. Ta ta tach'em if you can is created and produced by Pinkmoon Studio in partnership with Frequency Podcast Network. It's written and reported by me, your host Amelia King and Maggie Reid. Evan King is our post production supervisor Chris Rennick is our editor. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Catch 'em pod