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
Catch Him If You Can
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After Andréa goes public and launches the campaign to connect with other victims, the story gets some media attention. Before long, a tip comes in from a Czech woman that has Jodi and Kym hot on Marcel’s trail.
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SPEAKER_09March Voture 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_06Romance fraud, business fraud, investment fraud, medical fraud.
SPEAKER_01You know, they say a really good liar puts some foods 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_06He 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_02He doesn't work. This is his job. He is good at what he does. And you know what? Bravo. 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_09In episode four, you heard about how Kim, Jodi, and Andrea joined forces and began investigating Marcel's past. They learned that his cons go way beyond romance. They now know he also preys on women, men, new immigrants, the elderly, anyone who's vulnerable. In early 2019, Kim and Jodi continue to compile evidence against Marcel and find out more about his criminal activity. And in March, which is also anti-fraud month, Andrea launches a tip line to find other victims called Stop the March Madness. She knows the only way to catch Marcel is to strengthen numbers and by keeping a meticulous record of his crimes. Before long, Andrea gets a hit.
SPEAKER_02Someone reached out to us in May of 2019 saying that she had been with Andre for the past few months, traveling from Ontario to BC.
SPEAKER_08You know, I ended up in Victoria finally uh at the hostel, and I was just thinking about all those stuffs, and I was like, okay, maybe he's a con man or you know, uh, and then I was like, no, Nicola, don't be paranoid. Uh it uh it cannot be like gang, you know, organized group against you. I was like, Nicola, you're not living in uh detective uh uh stories.
SPEAKER_09Chapter 5. Catch him if you can.
SPEAKER_08My name is Nicola, I'm from Czech Republic, and I'm a barista right now. She's now in her early 30s. But I was 28 when uh when I met Mark.
SPEAKER_09Nicola is a self-proclaimed introvert, but you wouldn't know it from her life story. After college, where she studied film and theater, she wanted to get out of her small town and travel the world.
SPEAKER_08I've been to Asia, like Malaysia, Thailand, um, Indonesia. Also, like I was traveling uh around Europe a little bit, just trying to get more experience. And I was also interested to go to Canada, so I applied for a working holiday visa in 2017.
SPEAKER_09After a few months' stint working in London to make a bit of money for her travels, Nicola's 12-month visa was approved. And then in early March 2019, Nicola came to Canada.
SPEAKER_08Actually, it's really funny how I picked Toronto. I just looked uh to the some fight uh searcher and it just popped. I knew that I would like to end up in Vancouver, but uh before I said, okay, maybe why why don't to start in uh in Toronto?
SPEAKER_09Nicola usually stays in hostels when she travels. It's an easy way to meet like-minded people. So she checks into one in Toronto and pays for two weeks up front. The hostel is run by a Ukrainian woman. There's a Turkish man in his mid-40s, an Irish woman in her late 20s, and a college-aged American guy staying there when Nicola arrives.
SPEAKER_08I don't know if there was someone else, uh, but there was Mark definitely. He was like shining, uh smiling to everybody, very charming. Um I don't know, like um he was confident of himself.
SPEAKER_05I don't think we've met yet. Did you just get in?
SPEAKER_11I came here early this morning.
SPEAKER_05I'm Mark. Nice to meet you. Where are you from?
SPEAKER_11Nicola, I'm from Czech Republic. What brings you to Canada? I'm gonna do some some maybe volunteering or uh like travelling. I'm also needing to find a job or something when I run out of money.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I can help you on the job front for sure. You're going to love Canada. It's cold but beautiful. Where else have you been?
SPEAKER_11Recently I was in Europe. Uh before I was volunteering in Indonesia, uh Thailand, Malaysia.
SPEAKER_05No way. I've spent a ton of time in South Asia, mostly in Vietnam. I also volunteer there. It's so important to give back. The world needs more of that. I just got back from Vietnam actually. I was working as a helicopter pilot there, but took a job here flying people from Toronto to Niagara Falls. It's fine for now, but just temporary, because I actually have my own business.
SPEAKER_09Here's the real Nicola.
SPEAKER_08He showed us video where it's a helicopter uh landing, and uh when there was a little close-up uh like inside the helicopter, you could see that there was some uh bolded uh helicopter pilot with uh huge headphones, but it could be anybody, but he was like, ah well it's it's me, and you're not expecting that someone is uh lying to you. So uh when he said this, I was like, oh yeah, that's that's him.
SPEAKER_09Mark, aka Marcel, also told Nicola about his past. A story we've heard before, but with a slight twist. Again, his parents were hippie drug addicts, but this time he and his sister were taken away from their parents and put into foster care before his parents' untimely death that left them orphans. It was in their foster home that he met his lifelong best friend, Mike Martin. They moved to Vietnam together and joined the army at 19. He also claimed to have an army pension that paid him $5,000 per month, but most of that money was going to his drug addict sister in Toronto, who he wanted to cut off many times but couldn't bring himself to do. Mark was a big-time smoker, according to Nicola, cigarettes and weed. But he claimed the weed was to help with a back injury he sustained from a bike accident during a trip to India with Mike. After a few days at the hostel, Mark started inquiring more about Nicholas' travel plans.
SPEAKER_08But I was at that time, I was not sure where I'm gonna go. I was more thinking about East Coast, like Halifax, just go that way, and then maybe take flight from Halifax to Vancouver and you know stay there. But when we were talking with Mark, he was like, don't go to East Coast, there's nothing to see. Go go better to the West Coast, you know, like Rockies and uh everything.
SPEAKER_09Mark says he's from Vancouver. He shows her pictures of his beautiful house there, his many cars, including the baby blue Aston Martin. But Nicola isn't impressed by this.
SPEAKER_08I think that he really doesn't care how he gets you. He just wants to find a way. So when he was showing me like uh pictures of his house and cars and shit, he knew that I'm not interested in this shit. Uh then he said uh, okay, maybe we can travel, and uh I started to to plan more like what I'm gonna do. I decided to rent a car and do the trip. But the deal was that Mark said he was thinking about the same trip as uh I did, and that you know, he could join and uh we could split our expenses, and uh, you know, I know someone who can help you with the job.
SPEAKER_09Mark also tells Nicola she can stay at his house in Vancouver until she finds her own place. This all sounds very promising. A travel buddy, someone to split expenses with, a place to stay, and even a job. Nicola is a vegan, and Mark says his friend owns a vegan restaurant where she can work. Plus, Nicola's plan was always to end up in Vancouver. As they begin making plans for their Cross Canada road trip, Nicola needs to get her finances in order.
SPEAKER_11Uh before we're gonna go, I need to open a travel account with the bank. Uh tomorrow I'm gonna go.
SPEAKER_05Well, you can open an account, but if you want a credit card, that's not going to be easy. Trust me. Uh what do you mean? They don't just give credit cards to foreigners. You need someone to vouch for you. Some sort of uh guarantee that you have a way of paying it back, usually a job. No one is telling me about this. Don't worry, I'll vouch for you. We'll go to the bank together. I'll say you work for my company. We'll do it rigid. I'll even draw up a contract.
SPEAKER_09So they go to the bank together the next day and meet with a bank teller.
SPEAKER_08So she just asked him what's uh the name of his company. So he said the name of the company, and uh she found out, and she said, Okay, that's all good. And she opened the bank account for me with $5,000 Canadian uh dollars credit on it.
SPEAKER_09Like clockwork, after the visa gets approved, Mark is suddenly strapped for cash. He's waiting on his army pension and pay from his job as a helicopter pilot. He assures Nicola he'll pay her back if she can float some of the costs of the trip.
SPEAKER_08So you're just not expecting that everybody are bad persons, you know. It's exactly the opposite, I guess. I guess it's natural to expect that everybody are nice and everybody are telling the truth. Why? Because I'm saying the truth.
SPEAKER_09Before they leave, Nicola buys a few things for her and Mark, mostly camping gear. She figures Mark can pay her back when he gets paid, or she can sell his gear at the end of the trip.
SPEAKER_08He was like, you know, I'm used to have like always some money in my pocket, and I'm I feel like a crap, and um it never happened to me before. So he he he tried to convince me that he feel guilty for for that and that he gonna make me sure that he's gonna pay what he owed me. So and uh then we purchased like uh sleeping bags, like the army uh you know stuffs because we when we were camping, it was like minus 19. So we needed like good stuff, so it was like a good army stuff.
SPEAKER_09They depart for their road trip on a frigid morning in April. Mark urges Nicola to make sure her credit card works before they begin their journey.
SPEAKER_08So I purchased some grocery, uh, it was around one 100, and then I knew that it's it's working, you know, because the payment went through. And then I didn't really care the whole traveling where the cart is. And I think that the normal reaction of the people if someone is tapping their pin in, you're just look away, you know, but what he probably didn't.
SPEAKER_09Their drive will take 48 hours total, but they plan to make many stops along the way. The first stretch is a long one, north through Ontario, along Lake Huron and Lake Superior, eventually reaching Thunder Bay before crossing into Manitoba.
SPEAKER_08When you're on the road, you're mostly listening to music, but we didn't really have the same taste for the music. I think that the only match, only match was like a pink floor or something. I was more like uh I would say 80s, maybe 70s alternative rock and maybe like a punk rock and stuff, but he bought uh more like uh modern stuff, I don't know, some kind of DJ and uh Enrique Iglesias and David Goethe, and I remember one group, Blue October or something like that. He liked uh tragically hip.
SPEAKER_09Nicola does most of the driving and pays for almost everything. She's using the money she saved up from her job in London. For lodging, they do a mix of camping, Airbnbs, and motels. On the road, they talk about everything and anything.
SPEAKER_08About hockey, about uh friends, about Vietnam, about India, about traveling, veganism, politics.
SPEAKER_09The trip isn't overly planned. Instead, they just look at a map and decide where they want to go next.
SPEAKER_11Maybe I'd like to visit Winnipeg. It's only seven hours away.
SPEAKER_05No, we can't go to Winnipeg. It's way too dangerous, believe me.
SPEAKER_11Okay. Uh maybe we can keep going to a national park on the way or something.
SPEAKER_05I think we should just keep driving.
SPEAKER_11Let's stop in Saskatchewan. So far, though. I maybe we pull over somewhere, we we can sleep in the car.
SPEAKER_05We can't do that. It's illegal to sleep in your car in Canada. We have to keep driving.
SPEAKER_11Come on, man. I I can always feel like I was too exhausted, you know, too tired, so I couldn't continue because of the safety of everybody else. I I guess that every police officer could could understand this, and actually I've done this many times, you know, when I was doing road trips around Europe.
SPEAKER_05If you're too tired, I'll drive. I don't mind. Believe me, we aren't missing anything in Manitoba.
SPEAKER_09They drive on to Saskatchewan and end up stopping for almost a week during Easter in Prince Albert National Park, which is in the northern boreal forest. It's picturesque, covered in coniferous trees, mostly pines, spruces, and larches. This time they do sleep in the car for a few nights. Mark doesn't seem to mind now, but Nicola chalks it up to their secluded location. No one is around. Quite often, Mark is on the phone with his best friend, Mike Martin, who he claims is still in Vietnam. On these calls, he often speaks French or Vietnamese.
SPEAKER_08But sometimes he he walked uh he walked away, and sometimes uh it was in front of me. So I I actually uh it was not on the speaker, but I hear that there's some man voice uh on the other other side.
SPEAKER_09He also speaks to his boss and the property manager for his house in Vancouver. It's currently being rented out on Airbnb. This time the call is on speakerphone.
SPEAKER_08And so he was like asking her whether he can use the basement part or something like that. And she said, Yes, there are people and they will be leaving like uh beginning of May. And we were still on the way to Vancouver, so actually he said, Oh great, uh beginning of May, it uh it works for us. So he was trying to convince me that um we will have a place where to stay, and I will don't have to pay for my li like uh staying anywhere else, so it uh will make me save some money, and it looks like he also wanted to have some time to to collect the money and uh you know what he owed me, and uh that's what I thought.
SPEAKER_09As they make their way to Calgary, Nicholas starts to worry about money.
SPEAKER_08Before I came to Canada, I was in London, so I had like a British credit card and I I got a check one, and I also had the Canadian one, so I kind of knew that I'm okay, but when I started to to running out of the money, I I was like, man, you you will really need to pay me um as soon as possible. So he he trying to to convince me like uh yeah, he I will pay you once we get into Vancouver. I I will take the first job my boss will have for me, and uh yeah, I will send you the whole stuff.
SPEAKER_09When they arrive in Calgary, they have to return their rental car, but they find a great deal on a new one. Transporting a car from Calgary to Vancouver.
SPEAKER_08You know, they just needed to move some cars from point A to point B, so it was like a win-win for both sides.
SPEAKER_09So they make the 13-hour trek from Calgary to Vancouver.
SPEAKER_08Well, what happened when we came in to Vancouver was that uh I stayed at hostel again, and he said that he was gonna take the car and he will go and take the job his boss offered to him. So we did that. He took the car we had because we still had like a few days left till we needed to drop off. So he disappeared, but we were still in the touch. We were texting.
SPEAKER_05I'm going to be out of service for a few days. If I don't respond, that's why.
SPEAKER_11I thought you were still in Vancouver. Are you going to be back in time to return the car?
SPEAKER_05I am, of course. Don't worry. It's spotty service, and I don't have any more data. Okay, and you will be able to pay me back? A hundred percent. Once I get paid, you'll get every cent.
SPEAKER_08Here's the real Nicola. And once he said he's gonna be out of service, I got email from Mike, and Mike was saying that his sister had a car accident in Toronto and she's in a bad condition in in a hospital. And if I can pass this information to Mark.
SPEAKER_05Hello, Nicola. I cannot reach Mark. Can you get in touch with him and pass him this important information? It's a sad thing, but his sister jumped in front of a car. High on drugs, and she's in a bad condition in the hospital.
SPEAKER_08It's funny because it was still Mark, but I what happened? I missed the email. So uh actually Mark started texting me like uh Nicola.
SPEAKER_05Why didn't you respond?
SPEAKER_11I didn't know he emailed. I'm on vacation, I don't care about email.
SPEAKER_05Something bad happened to my sister. Check your email.
SPEAKER_11Okay, uh, what are we gonna do?
SPEAKER_05I need a flight back to Toronto.
SPEAKER_11Are you gonna do that? You have no money. I'm not going to pay for anything.
SPEAKER_05I'll ask my boss for an advance.
SPEAKER_09Here's Nicola again.
SPEAKER_08So after a couple days, he picked me up at the hostel.
SPEAKER_09Before they part ways, Mark asks for her debit card. He says he'll deposit money into her checking account. Nicola gives him the card. The account has no money in it, so she figures, what's the harm?
SPEAKER_08Then I took over driving and I dropped him off at Vancouver International Airport, and that was the last time I saw him.
SPEAKER_09Nicola takes the rental car back.
SPEAKER_08So I thought like it will cost me $300 or I don't know, uh, because it was a really good deal, as I told you before, like uh uh pick up Calgary drop off Vancouver. So I did that and they charged me like over 1000 or something like that. They told me that uh it there was uh like a limited kilometer range. So we were allowed to do just that uh distance between Calgary and uh Vancouver. So and then they told me you overdid it, and I was like, How how much? And they said like 1400 kilometers.
SPEAKER_09Nicola doesn't know where Mark took the car, but she can't afford the extra charges.
SPEAKER_08And before this happened, I already paid the four or three nights uh in Victoria. I knew that I don't want to stay in Vancouver anymore as it was too expensive.
SPEAKER_09Nicola tries paying for the nights in Victoria with her check card. It's declined. She tries again and it does go through, but she finds out she's in the negative. She can't use this card anymore. Her British visa is also. Maxed out. She figures at least she has the Canadian credit card.
SPEAKER_08But then I found out that it's more deep because all the 5,000 credit I had on the credit card was gone.
SPEAKER_09The people at the car rental company take pity on Nicola and pay for her cab to the ferry terminal. But she has no money for the ferry to Victoria. Nicola has to beg strangers for money.
SPEAKER_08I knew when I get there, I knew that I have like a three nights at the hostel in Victoria. So I was good for three days. But I didn't really know what I'm gonna do after because I didn't have anything. So then I was starting to, you know, to feel a little bit desperate and like, holy shit, what I going on and what I did uh wrong. So I yeah, I just stayed three days there. Then I I stayed um a couple nights uh on the streets.
SPEAKER_09Nicola starts to suspect that something isn't right with Mark.
SPEAKER_08And I was just thinking about all those stuffs, and I was like, okay, maybe he's a con man, and then I was like, no, Nicola, don't be paranoid. It cannot be like gang, you know, organized group against you. I was like, Nicola, you're not living in uh detective uh uh stories.
SPEAKER_09She reaches out to Mark to check on the status of her money.
SPEAKER_11I'm sleeping on the streets in Victoria, Mark. I have no money. When will you pay me?
SPEAKER_05I'm in Toronto. I'm sleeping on a park bench outside of the hospital. My sister is dying. Sad face. That's horrible. I have nothing to eat. Can your mom send you money? No, she can't. My friend said he deposited $500 into your account. Can we share that money just until I get paid?
SPEAKER_11I just called the bank. They're putting a hold on the money. Those bastards.
SPEAKER_09At the bank, Nicola finds out that the $500 deposit was a blank check that someone tried to withdraw. And just like in Jody's case, the fraud department at the bank blames her. It's quite difficult to prove it was not me. But Nicola is able to prove it wasn't her. She had used her card in Victoria at the same time the blank check was deposited with her debit card in Nanaimo, British Columbia. As far as the maxed-out credit card goes, Mark had been using it the whole time they were traveling, racking up charges and making cash withdrawals.
SPEAKER_08The CIBC fraud department, they were trying to convince me that I gave him the card, and I was like, no, the card was taken from me.
SPEAKER_09Nicola tries to file a report with the police, but is met with the same disdain as the others.
SPEAKER_08But when you are like a foreigner, you know, English is your second language and you are newcomer in a total strange country, you you just don't feel confident enough to to negotiate with officers and police. Like I'm not the first one, and that I'm not probably gonna be the last one. It's just funny that when there's no blood, no uh no violence, it doesn't mean it's not a crime. So I I think this this should be taken seriously. Until today, I don't understand how the Canadian police work, you know, they're s uh because they told me at the police station that they got him in the system. So it meant uh that uh he did something in British Columbia, you know, but uh there was no interest to do something about it.
SPEAKER_09Nicola isn't a very online person, but when she tells her story to her friend Kevin, a Swiss man she met in Victoria, he suggests they search for info on Mark.
SPEAKER_08We just tapped his name into the Google and the campaign uh site pops out.
SPEAKER_09She's talking about Andrea's Stop the March Madness tip line.
SPEAKER_08I I felt desperate at that time. And because police and bank like failed, I said okay, I'm I'm gonna write to to Andrea to do to the campaign. And that was the first people actually finally helpful because Andrea connected me with Kim, uh with uh another victim.
SPEAKER_09If you remember, Kim lives in Victoria, so she and Nicola meet up the next day.
SPEAKER_08She wanted to be uh sure that he's not following me or something, so we did it like uh secretly. Then I told her like what happened and she couldn't believe, but she was glad that um I reached out because always when someone reached out it means that uh he's close. So I guess that after a long time, you know, like uh they felt like they might get him or something.
SPEAKER_09Nicola tells Kim the whole story. At this point, she's still in touch with Mark via text. He says his sister passed away and Mike is heading to Toronto for the funeral, but that they'd come to Victoria to pick her up after. Kim and Nicola try to keep Marcel talking, with hopes of setting a meetup.
SPEAKER_08But at some point he he stopped because he knew that he he will not see any money from me.
SPEAKER_09Kim loops Jody in on everything, and they are determined to track him down. He's close by. They can feel it. The two had recently discovered more details about Marcel's previous crimes and open cases, including an open warrant for his arrest in Manitoba, which explains why he was so cautious and didn't want to stop there on the road trip. While Nicola was being conned by Marcel, the campaign to stop him got some media attention. Andrea had reached out to every journalist in the city. Then the trio are approached by Chatelaine magazine to do a piece about them. With the new information from Nicola, they ask to postpone it as they pursue the lead.
SPEAKER_06So what we do know about Andre's MO is that he moves around a lot. It allows him to go to different jurisdictions, different um provinces, but as we get more information, as we get more media exposure, we know that he's looking over his shoulder and we know that we're closing in on him. So it may change for him.
SPEAKER_09He also characteristically gets his victims to buy him something and then flips it on Khajiji. That's his test. Is she gonna buy me something?
SPEAKER_02And do I have her, right? Has she fallen for what I want to do? So So they immediately ask Nicola. We said, Did you buy him anything? And she said, Yeah, I bought him a backpack from Mech.
SPEAKER_08A $300 backpack. So then we had an inkling that it he's probably around Nanaimo uh because the debit uh card shit happened in Nanaimo.
SPEAKER_02So then Kim went online and started searching all over Vancouver Island on Kijiji for this backpack, and she found one in that was being sold in Nanaimo under the name Mark.
SPEAKER_09It was the same one. A Fiol Raven Abisco 55-liter backpack. The ad says 9.8 condition was going to do the West Coast Trail, but plans changed.
SPEAKER_02So that was on a Wednesday, and she called me. She's like, I think I found them. So she sent me a screenshot of the ad. Uh, we reached out through one of my friends, reached out to him, you know, did a fake account on Kajiji and was like, hey, dude, interested in your bag kind of thing. Can you reach out to me? He never responded. So we were kind of like, is he there? Is he not there? But I was just like, you know what? I'm going. I'm going.
SPEAKER_09Jody is dating someone new. He is very supportive of her throughout this whole ordeal. For privacy reasons, we're keeping his name out of the show.
SPEAKER_02And he's like, if that's what you want to do and you think you're gonna find him, then let's go. So Friday afternoon, got in the car, drove down to Vancouver, stayed at my girlfriend's house. And uh I remember sitting there having you know dinner with them, and her husband looked at at my guy and said, Uh, do you really think you're gonna find him? And I remember it's just kind of like looking at me and I could see the doubt, but he said, you know what, if Jody thinks this is worthwhile, then we're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_09Jody prints out flyers with his face on them. Nanaimo isn't a small city. Roughly 90,000 people live there, but she knows a lot about Marcel now, including where he stays and places he frequents.
SPEAKER_02So we got up the next morning and got on the ferry, got off the ferry, we were in Nanaimo by 10 o'clock, parked downtown. We went right to the hostel because that's would be my first off. I walked in the hostel and I said, you know, do you recognize this guy? He's like, Yep, I recognize him. He pulled up his name in the computer. He's like, I recognize him, but he's not staying here. I'm like, okay. So then we went to the cannabis store. And the girl in there, she's like, Does he have an accent? I said, Yeah, a French accent. She's like, I think he's trying to date the girl that works here, the other girl that works here. So we're like, okay, is she around? And she's like, okay, she's she's in later today. So we're like, okay, we'll come back.
SPEAKER_09Next up, Tim Hortons, of course. Marcel's stomping ground.
SPEAKER_02So then we walked up to Tim Hortons, showed the manager his picture, and he's like, I don't recognize him, but let me get one of the morning girls and see if she recognizes. So this little Filipino lady came out from the back and I showed her, and she's like, Oh, yeah, yeah, he was here this morning. And I just looked at my guy and I'm just like, he's here.
SPEAKER_09I knew it. He's here. In the meantime, Kim is on her way up from Victoria to meet them. Kim and Jodi haven't met yet in person.
SPEAKER_02So Victoria is about uh two hours, two and a half hours from Nanaimo. I was excited to meet her finally. We had just grown so close in each other, like through this whole ordeal and talking all the time on the phone. So as she was driving up, we're already in the process of okay, let's start digging and try to find this guy.
SPEAKER_09Jodi and her partner's next stop is the library. Jody knew him to frequent libraries to quote, work or use their internet.
SPEAKER_02So we went to the library. I walked around, hoping that he would be there. No, no sign of them. Went to the counter, asked them if we could put up a poster. They were like, nope. They were they were horrible, horrible to deal with. They were just like, nope, we're not telling you nothing, we're not giving you any help, nothing. Get out of here, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_09They leave feeling dejected. They already visited three prime locations, but no sighting yet.
SPEAKER_02So we walked out of there, and there was this young homeless guy sitting outside the library, and went up to him and gave him $20 and said, you know what? Go get a good meal. Then I came out of the library and he's like, Oh, by the way, do you recognize this guy? And I handed the kid a flyer, and he's like, Oh, yeah, that's Mark. And I'm like, bingo Jody asks the man where Mark hangs out. And he's like, Oh, he hangs out a lot at the soup kitchen. And we're like, Okay, where's the soup kitchen? We'll go there now. It's almost lunchtime. And he's like, Oh, it's just up a block up from the Salvation Army. And we're like, Okay, yeah, we saw the Salvation Army when we drove in. We know exactly where it is. Thanks so much. You know, go get a good meal and have a good day.
SPEAKER_09As they're walking down to the soup kitchen, they pass by the Salvation Army.
SPEAKER_02And we both looked at each other and we're like, we should go into the Salvation Army and give them a flyer. So we walked across the street. As I opened up the door, it was like a you walked into like a fishbowl kind of thing. It was all glassed in, and then there was like a reception that you could talk through the window at the reception, and then there was a door they automatically opened, like they control that door. So you're kind of in like a foyer.
SPEAKER_09Jody and her partner wait to speak to the receptionist who's currently occupied.
SPEAKER_02And I just had this feeling, and I turned around and I saw him, and he was behind the glass, and he was coming out. I had on a baseball cap, sunglasses, and I remember him looking at me and just kind of smiling, but he didn't recognize me. He didn't recognize me. So then he comes out the door and I just moved right over and I got right in front of him and I looked at him and I'm like, hey, Dre. And he was just like, Oh my god. He's like, What? I'm like, gotcha, motherfucker. And then I took my sunglasses off and I'm like, How you doing, Dre? He's like, Oh, oh, I'm in, I'm in rehab, I'm in rehab. Marcel suggests they go outside to talk. And I'm just like, Where's my money? Where's my $45,000? He's like, Yeah, I know, I know I owe you money. Oh, I was so high on drugs at the time, I don't remember anything. And I'm in rehab now. He had his sunglasses on, he had a baseball cap, his sunglasses on, same as me, which is ironic. But I think I asked him probably six times to take his sunglasses off. And and then he I got firm with them, and I'm like, take your sunglasses off. And he's like, Why? I said, Because I want to look you in the eye. And he did. He took them off, put them on top of his hat, and he looked at me, and I saw fear.
SPEAKER_09Then Jody's partner reaches for Marcel's shirt and says, Let's see your money belt. Let's see if you have any money on you right now.
SPEAKER_02And he was like, What? I don't have a money belt. And then he he looked over at the reception and he's like, buzz me back in, buzz me back in. And he turned and he was panicked. He was just like, it was, you know, in the moment, it was like the most exhilarating feeling ever to just be like, you know what? You are findable. You are findable. So he buzzed back in. People there, security came out right away. They were like, What's going on? And I'm like, call 911. This guy's a con man, he's a fraudster. I got the proof, just call 911.
SPEAKER_09This is the real audio of the interaction from Jody's cell phone.
SPEAKER_03We got a we got Kim coming up with the two fucking. Can you call the clock, please? All across Canada. I have the proof. He's watching all across canvas. Forgery, fraud, theft, everything. He's wanted.
SPEAKER_09The security at the Salvation Army refused to intervene. They say it doesn't involve them. So Jody calls the police herself.
SPEAKER_02So I'm on the phone calling 911. They're like, you know, is there a file? Is there like an active warrant? I'm like, no, there's not an active warrant in BC, but he's got warrants all across Canada. Like, get your ass over here. We found them. I'll pay to fly him to Manitoba. I don't care. Just get over here, get an officer over here. We've got him cornered in here. I mean, you know how you have no idea how hard it was to even get them to send an officer. It was so hard. I was begging with them. And I, while I'm on the phone with 911, I have a binder like this thick of information. I'm like, go back to the car, get the binder, so that when the police get here, I can just show them the binder.
SPEAKER_09Finally, an officer does show up, but he says he can't do anything without a warrant.
SPEAKER_02He's like, and see you got an active open file, but I don't have a warrant. And I'm like, go in, grab him. You know what? Give me five minutes with him. I just want to talk to him. And he's like, Oh, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can trust you to be alone with him. And no, just go in and talk to him, pull him out here. I want to have a conversation with him. The guy stole $45,000 from me. I want to talk to him. He's like, okay, let me go in and see what I can do.
SPEAKER_09The officer tells Jody he'll get on the radio to see if they can get his warrant in Manitoba extradited to BC, or at the very least, see if they can pick him up for questioning.
SPEAKER_02So we're standing in the foyer waiting. He goes in, he talks to security, comes back out, and he's like, he jumped out a window at the second floor. Yeah. And I just looked at the cop and I said, Well, does an honest man run? And then he he's like, you know, I'll drive around for a bit, see if I can find him. And I just looked at him, I said, Yep, and we're gonna do the same. And we drove around for hours.
SPEAKER_09By the time Kim arrives in Nanaimo, Marcel is in the wind. Jodi is infuriated with the lack of movement on her case. It's what's allowed Marcel to escape.
SPEAKER_02They haven't done the work to get my warrant. My file is still open, my file is still active, but they have not gone to the courts to get the warrant. They haven't done the work. They haven't done the work. They've just sat on the file. They have not done anything. They haven't even gone to the bank yet to get the production orders to get the information from the bank. They just don't care.
SPEAKER_09There are also problems with the legal system that allow people like Marcel to evade justice. Here's Kim's take on that situation.
SPEAKER_06He knows that there's loopholes within the police force. He knows that there's not a collaboration from province to province. He knows the laws enough that if he gets charged with fraud, he's probably only going to get six months and a slap on the hand. He knows that most people are going to feel blame and shame and they're not going to come forward. And also that the police look at it as like a petty kind of situation, especially if it's only 5,000 or 10,000.
SPEAKER_09It's not on their radar. There's no Canada-wide warrant for Marcel's arrest. And despite multiple active warrants in Quebec and Manitoba, he can move around freely in other provinces. No one is looking at the totality of his crimes across the country.
SPEAKER_02That's how he gets away with it. He knows, he knows the system. When we went through those bank records or the phone records, there were phone calls to banks, security firms, uh, border patrol, Canada customs, everything. So he is constantly, constantly checking up and seeing, okay, where's has my warrant been extended? Can I go here? Can I go there? That's what he's doing.
SPEAKER_09What they need is a Canada-wide warrant, a type of warrant that is reserved for, quote, serious cases, and one that can only be ordered by the judge of a superior court or a pellet court. Despite their frustration with the police so far, Kim and Jody are determined to push for it. But the question is, will the police actually cooperate and take their case seriously?
SPEAKER_02The big thing is it just takes one person, this one person to say, you know what, we're gonna do what we gotta do. I remember going into the the one of the police station meetings and saying, you know, like I want to press a charge for deception right now. And they laughed at me. I'm like, it's a thing in the States. And they're like, it's not here. I'm like, it needs to be. Because I would never have had an intimate relationship with this man if I'd known who he was. He completely deceived me and took advantage of me. And that's huge. Rape by deception. Rape by deception.
SPEAKER_09For Jodi, the nightmare and financial burden of her time with Marcel continues to haunt her.
SPEAKER_02It's it's hard, like the end of the month, and I know I gotta pay those bills, and it's it's like I I relive it every month. I go dark for two days every month, and I hate doing it. I dissociate, I go dark, and I'm just like, I gotta let me deal with this. And then within a couple days, I'm back and I'm like, okay, let's get through another month, and it's just killing me.
SPEAKER_09A few months later, after what happened in Nanaimo, and with Jody's relentless pressure on the RCMP, a constable takes ownership over her case. He promises to work solely on her file. For the first time in over a year, Jody feels optimistic about the future. The Chadelaine magazine article also gets published, bringing national attention to the case. The women get a lot of support after coming forward, but they also receive a lot of vitriol, especially online.
SPEAKER_00He's successful because he tells these ladies how much money he has. They'd never go for him if he told them he drives a cab or is a janitor.
SPEAKER_07How do people keep falling for these scam artists? There's so much in the news about it. Crazy.
SPEAKER_04So how do I know this isn't just some bitter exes to threw this together? It says he takes all this stuff, but that would be theft and he'd be in jail. So what's his fraud? Maybe he has a hard time with commitment.
SPEAKER_09While all of these comments are hurtful and victim blaming, one message that Jody receives really sticks out.
SPEAKER_02So it was like day after Chadelaine magazine article came out, and I got this uh message on my messenger and Facebook, and it just said, uh, how could you be so stupid, you silly, silly woman? And I was like, What the fuck? And then I was I went out of town to my friends when the article came out because I knew it was just gonna be a shit show. And so I was like, I'm taking cover, I'm going to. Cuver and hanging out at my friend's house, and I got there, and I'm like, look at this message, it's already started. So there was a the profile picture was this guy and this older woman. And I'm like, I recognize that woman. So I went through all my phone because I still had all the messages from Andre on my phone. I still do. Anyway, I recognized the woman in the picture. So I went through all my files, all my text messages. And I remember one time I had asked Andre, because he said that he had been raised by his grandparents. And I'm like, Oh, she sounds like your grandma sounds like a really sweet lady. Do you have any pictures of her? And he sent me a picture of her. And she was in the picture with the guy. I said, That is his dad. So I wrote him back and I said, How could you create such a sociopathic asshole, you rat bastard? And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_09The women expected some negative backlash, but they hoped more good than bad would come from going public. And with all of the attention from the article, new tips start rolling in.
SPEAKER_02Two guys came forward from Vietnam that were from Quebec and they live in Vietnam half the year, and they saw the Chadelain story in Vietnam. They got they got taken by him too. And they told Andrea that the Vietnamese mafia were looking for him.
SPEAKER_09Their investigation is getting stronger and more expansive by the day.
SPEAKER_06We have found eight provinces where there's been criminal activity, with some of them with outstanding warrants that are still existing in some of the major cities. We have four men and approximately 14 or 15 women spanning over those provinces, including a woman out of Bellingham, Washington as well. I've done the calculation based on uh the investigation, and I have it just over a million dollars. And that's what we know of.
SPEAKER_09In early fall of 2019, another tip comes through, but this one just doesn't feel right.
SPEAKER_02Someone came forward on the Mark Stop the March Madness campaign and emailed uh the campaign and said that uh she thought that her friend was dating him in Kelowna, BC. And she said that they had met on match.com. So I went on to Match under an alias and searched for him. I couldn't find him. And in all honesty, I think that he he's trying to just play games with us. I think it was him. You know, I'm I'm 100% confident that he's following what we're doing. I have no doubt, no doubt that he's reading the articles, that he's watching the website. Just as much as we're following him, he's following us.
SPEAKER_09On the next episode of Catch Em If You Can, the case continues to build. But where in the world is Marcel Andre Vautour?
SPEAKER_02He's either laying low, he's either found somebody that he's just kind of sponging off of, or he got across the border somehow.
SPEAKER_06But I think that he is concerned that we're we're on him and we're gonna get him. We're gonna get the fucker, and we don't care how we're gonna get him, we're gonna get him.
SPEAKER_02So keep running, keep running, keep hiding, because I'll find you again and again and again and again, because he is pattern, and we know his pattern. He might go dark for a couple years, and that's fine. Go dark, but I'll find you again.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so um right now he has no idea anybody's on to him, right? Hold on, yeah. I guess he buddy sent me pictures. Make sure before we get so excited, it's him 100% him. French Chinese, I think. Oh my god, he took a picture of his ID, his passport. Amazing. It's him 100% him. Okay, how do we get him?
SPEAKER_09Catch 'em if you can is created and produced by Pink Moon Studio in partnership with Frequency Podcast Network. It's written and reported by me, your host Amelia King, and Maggie Reed. Evan King is our post production supervisor. Chris Rennick is our editor. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Catch Em Pod.