US charges three key players in $200 million psychic scam
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Canadian citizens Maria Thanos and Philip Lett managed the day-to-day operations of Infogest Direct Marketing, according to the documents. Previous government filings show that this Canadian company used letters allegedly written by French clairvoyant Maria Duval to prey on the sick and elderly. Infogest ran the North American arm of the scam, raking in more than $200 million from more than 1.4 million victims in the United States and Canada.
The criminal charges are the first brought by the US government against any of the scam's key players. Many other perpetrators -- including some of the original masterminds -- remain at large around the world. Read MoreA long list of government agencies have spent decades trying to end the scam, and the US government finally shut it down for good in the United States in 2016. As part of a settlement, Infogest, Thanos, Lett and others were barred from sending the letters on US soil.
Using the name and image of Duval, along with that of another French psychic named Patrick Guerin, letters were sent to people all over the world promising that her psychic guidance and talismans could turn their lives around. All they needed to do was send money. At Infogest, Lett and Thanos worked to obscure the letters' true origins -- sending them zigzagging around North America before they landed in victims' mailboxes.
As part of its past investigation, the US government was able to return more than $200,000 worth of cash and money order payments sent in by nearly 6,000 victims, according to United States Postal Inspection Service figures. These funds had yet to be processed by a business involved with the scheme and were still in their envelopes when recovered by investigators. Along with pending checks and credit payments that were stopped, the investigation saved victims about $827,000.
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