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
The Switch Up
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Emilia and Maggie share an update on everything that has happened since Season One first aired. This crazy whirlwind starts with Kyra, a single mom in British Columbia, who’s working multiple jobs to build a better life for her kids. Then, she meets a man named Frenchie. Her tip sets off a sequence of events that bring us closer to justice than we've ever been.
For more information and to send tips go to: https://www.catchhimpod.com/
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @catchimpod
You're listening to a Frequency Podcast Network production.
SPEAKER_07I come home from work. My car's gone. That was my first red flag. What's going on? My camera didn't ding. It didn't go off at me to alert me that I was home. So I was like, what's going on? Something is really wrong here. And I didn't see the van. And I'm like, okay, so I'm spamming him. I'm spamming my friend. I'm like going absolutely nuts. And I'm thinking to myself initially, well, he's not just gonna go and steal my car and not come back, come back, come back, come back.
SPEAKER_06March 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_07He said, Do you know what I do to cats that do shit like this? I kill them. And I always think, like, did you kill my cat, you son of a mmm.
SPEAKER_06My name is Amelia King. And I'm Maggie Reid. And you're listening to our four-episode update to season one of Catch Em If You Can. For the last three years, we've been burning the midnight oil to uncover the story of Canadian con man Marcel Andre Vautour. Marcel has many aliases. Andre, Dre, Mark with a C, Mark with a K, and of course, most famously, March. We've been working alongside three unstoppable women: Jody McMullen, Kim Nicholson, and Andreas Branza. Together, we formed a tight-knit unit of strength, support, and investigative power, swimming against the current of a justice system that appears to have little interest in stopping serial fraudsters like Marcel.
SPEAKER_05And since last season, our tight-knit group expanded by two. Emilia and I were literally giving birth to our babies just as our first episode went live. This has been a wild journey for us. So much has happened in the case since we last spoke. A big question mark at the end of last season was where in the world is Marcel Andre Vautour?
SPEAKER_06So, dear listeners, let's go back to where we left off. In season one, we met Andrea Speranza, a no-nonsense fire captain from Nova Scotia who met Marjay Bear by chance at a Tim Hortons in August 2018.
SPEAKER_08He gets in your head and he just finds out what you're about and feeds you that and just whatever you like, she likes.
SPEAKER_06We met Kim Nicholson, a fearless registered nurse from British Columbia, who met a charming man named Andre while crossing Canada by train. The people on Via Rail knew him. They knew what he ordered to drink, so that gave him a sense of importance as well. And then we met Jody McMullen, a recently divorced health information officer from Kelowna, who, after some convincing from her friends, tried online dating for the first time and found Dre. You know, it still wasn't processing that I was a target.
SPEAKER_09Like I was never loved by him.
SPEAKER_06And of course, we met others too. Marjolaine from Quebec, who was promised a management job on the rigs and sold everything to make it happen. We met JB and Marcia at the campground, and Francis, who Marcel met when she was just eight years old. We heard from his childhood neighbor and other people who unwittingly signed off on his cons without knowing they were even part of them. Like Marcia from Nova Scotia.
SPEAKER_04So when Andrea finally called me, March had told her that the reason he was at the campground was because I was his stepmother.
SPEAKER_06And we met Fan and Andre, tracked Marcel down to Toronto and documented a real-time crusade to get local police to do something, to take this seriously. That's how we got this tape of Marcel's real voice.
SPEAKER_01So for me, because I know you you you you guys were students and don't have a lot of money, what I decided to do, which I told you, was to work Mike's hours.
SPEAKER_06You'll remember that the criminal justice system failed us. And Marcel was in the wind again.
SPEAKER_05Since we last knew of Marcel's whereabouts in 2020, there was a global pandemic. We've often wondered, how does someone like Marcel do what he does in a world like this? Remember, he travels the world, meets his victims in person, stays at hostels. He typically uses other people to corroborate his cons. As we recorded our last episode, Jodi was still pushing for a Canada-wide warrant in her case, pressing for updates and hearing crickets. And just as things started to feel hopeless, a new tip surfaced that helped piece together what Marcel has been up to. Marcel's latest victim was another single mother from British Columbia. The young mom was too nervous at the time to share her story. But after connecting with Jody, she found the competence to go public. That decision turned out to be pivotal, setting off a string of events that led us to where we are now.
SPEAKER_06Over the next four episodes, we're gonna tell you everything that's happened since season one aired. And it's a lot, so buckle up. We dive into Marcel's new MO, we hear tips from fans of the podcast turned detectives, we hear from new victims, and we follow our real-time crusade to catch him. We don't want to completely spill the beans, but our twisty turney journey finds us face to face with the elusive man we've been chasing for three years. This crazy whirlwind starts in January 2022 with Kyra, the single mom from British Columbia who's been working multiple jobs to build a better life for her kids. Her tip to us set off a sequence of events that has us closer than ever to getting some justice. This is Kyra's story. Chapter 8.
SPEAKER_07Oh, six days a week I work usually, sometimes seven. A lot of the times I don't get a break. Kyra's going through a rough patch with one of her exes. So I was trying to get my son back from him, which was pretty difficult.
SPEAKER_06One day, out of the blue, she gets a desperate and unusual call from a close friend.
SPEAKER_07My friend reached out to me and he said that, oh, I have this friend of mine. He's homeless right now. He's living in a van with his son. His son is coming off of drugs, they need somewhere to go. He's got these problems with his health. He has to be relatively close to a hospital. I know you live close to a hospital.
SPEAKER_06Do you mind if he stays in your driveway? Kyra tells her friend she wants to meet the father-son duo before agreeing to anything. So on a cold day in January, she drives up to Surrey, and that's when she meets a man named Frenchie and his son, Pinky.
SPEAKER_07It was actually at French's house outside of it, and he came into my truck to meet me.
SPEAKER_06Kyra's first impression of the man who called himself Frenchie really surprised me.
SPEAKER_07He seemed like a weak, frail man that was going through a lot. He seemed wise beyond his years, that he had a lot to offer. He seemed like a loving person that cared about his son, and that he'd been through a lot, per se, and that he was trying to better his life for both of them. He was very like gray in the face, pale, but he seemed pretty weak, pretty sick.
SPEAKER_06This is a very different Marcel than we're used to hearing about. If you remember, he typically poses as this very wealthy, highly successful man whose money is tied up in Vietnam. Now he's saying he's homeless. The man also tells Kyra he's suffering from Crohn's. Of course we've heard this before. She feels compelled to help.
SPEAKER_07I felt bad. I have family and friends that they have gone down the wrong path and been able to overcome it and become, you know, productive members of society. And, you know, I figure what's one more person to help?
SPEAKER_06She decides to allow the duo to stay at her place under the condition that it would only be for a short time.
SPEAKER_07He said it would only be for a few months until he can get his doctor stuff sorted out to go back to Ontario.
SPEAKER_06So Marcel, aka Frenchie, is traveling with someone he claims is his son. But we know from speaking to his wife that Marcel's son is still a minor and lives in Quebec. So who is Pinky? This isn't the first time we've heard of Marcel taking a younger male under his wing. Remember the story of JB from France, who Marcel abandons in Nova Scotia after disappearing on Andrea? Listen to the similarities between the description that Kyra gives of Pinky and what Andrea and Marcia told us of JB. Marcel definitely has a type.
SPEAKER_07He was quiet, reserved. I don't think he said anything at all, unless spoken to by Frenchie.
SPEAKER_06Kyrus's Pinky looked disheveled, like he'd been living on the streets, ripped clothes, not so clean teeth. Frenchie, on the other hand, looked put together.
SPEAKER_07He had a black puffy jacket. I think it was Eddie Bauer. He had always wore a face mask, he had a big beard with gray in it. Um, his head was shaved, like not all the way down to the grain, but you could still see like the hairs, jeans mostly, and he wore runners.
SPEAKER_06I think they were Nikes. It took two weeks before she was finally joined by the father-son duo because Frenchie says he's been in and out of the hospital. When they finally arrive, she has some rules for her house guests.
SPEAKER_07He was only to go in to shower and use the bathroom at nighttime. I explained to him I locked the door. That was very strict for about the first month.
SPEAKER_06So Pinky and Frenchie stay in the back of their van during the day. It's parked on Kyra's driveway. I'll let her paint a picture of his new digs.
SPEAKER_07It was a silver Chevy Uplander, like 2006 or something like that. They completely gutted the back of it so there were no back seats. And they built like this makeshift bunk thing, which was really, really weird. It looked like a terrible prison cell. I looked at it one day and I was like, how do you sleep in that? Like, I couldn't imagine. And you know, they would bring these little heaters, the space heaters, in, into the van. And I guess they lit their, they melted their sleeping bags a few times by it because that's how crammed it was back there.
SPEAKER_06How the mighty have fallen. Her new house guest respected her rules for a few weeks. And then Kyra starts to soften.
SPEAKER_07But once he started like opening up and charming me, of course, he told me he was from Quebec. And he told me that his real name is Mark, and I was free to call him Mark if I wanted to.
SPEAKER_00You can call me Mark.
SPEAKER_06She finds herself growing closer with the strange Tusom. And when Frenchie hears of Kyra's custody problem, he jumps in immediately to help.
SPEAKER_07So he gave me this link and he says, I have this really great lawyer. He's helped me with all sorts of stuff.
SPEAKER_08I have a really good lawyer.
SPEAKER_07He's made it so I have I've only spent, you know, a couple days or a couple months or something in jail.
SPEAKER_06Frenchie says he can take care of everything for Kyra and be the one to communicate with him, given his existing relationship with the lawyer.
SPEAKER_07He says, Look, if you let me talk to him, I can get you a better deal. I can get a better deal for you. Just send over the retainer with your statement.
SPEAKER_06So she does. And after a little back and forth with the lawyer, Frenchie tells Kyra she'll be able to get her son back really soon. Good Friday was the day that I was gonna go and get my son with the lawyer.
SPEAKER_08You'll be with your son again soon.
SPEAKER_06Then at one point, Frenchie comes to Kyra with a problem.
SPEAKER_07I mean, it's really cold. He came to me, he said Pinky's stupid, he's gonna light us on fire, and now the cord's not working, so the van's not charging, and I don't want to kill the battery. He gave me some sob story that he was gonna have to go somewhere and stay somewhere else. And I was like, oh, okay. And then he says, Well, I mean, unless you don't mind us sleeping on the couch. And I was like, Well, like, I'm not here, so like I don't really mind.
SPEAKER_06And from that day on, Frenchie and Pinky got to stay inside the house. She recounts that the people in her life really liked Frenchie. My mom said he was a wonderful guy, he was a really great guy. He is charming and charismatic and has interesting stories. Frenchie says he's in the storage locker business. Throughout the time he's with Kyra, he's always coming up with schemes to make quick money.
SPEAKER_07You buy the locker with all these random people's stuff that they couldn't afford to pay their storage locker for, and you go and sell it at the flea market.
SPEAKER_06Frenchie tells Kyra they'll split the cost of buying the locker contents and then share the profits. She also recalls that Frenchie was into quite the buffet of party drugs during his stay. He smoked weed, he did cocaine, mushrooms, ketamine. As time goes on, Frenchie reveals a lot about his past, stuff Kyra really doesn't like.
SPEAKER_07He said he was in the military when he was a teenager, he was a wealthy businessman at one point as well when he came out of the military, and he had his poop in a group, basically. And once he got mixed up with the wrong people and the wrong choices, is when he lost everyone. I remember one thing, this conversation definitely sticks out to me because it was right around the time that he had given me a link to this lawyer. I said, How do you do it going this long without seeing or talking to your kids? I said, like, I can't, I can't, like, I couldn't fathom because I was going through a lot at that time and I really missed my son. It was really hard on me. And I said, How do you do it? And he says, Oh, they don't miss me. He reveals some disturbing things. He said he ripped off a lot of really bad people and hurt and killed a lot of really bad people and was paying the consequences for it, was on the run. There were provinces he couldn't go to because he had warrants for murder and drug dealing.
SPEAKER_06Kyra becomes increasingly annoyed with Frenchie's stories, and she doesn't believe all of them either.
SPEAKER_07After I've worked all day and I've had all the mental stimulation and physical stimulation at work, I don't want to listen to a lot of the stories. Not only that, but like some of them seemed a little far-fetched, and then other times there were things that I didn't want to hear, right? That we would claim are from his past, and he's not like that anymore. And you know, it was just things that I didn't want to be around, I didn't want to associate with per se, like the drug stuff and the killing stuff. I was like, uh, if it's in your past, we're gonna leave it there and we're gonna stop talking about it.
SPEAKER_06At one point, Kyra is gearing up to move house. Frenchie offers to help her. And while she appreciates the offer, she's weary of having two almost strangers access her private things.
SPEAKER_07I was like, look, like I respect your help, thank you, but I don't want anyone going through my stuff. You know, that's the potential. I don't want to be fraudding. And Frenchie got really, really, really mad. He made all of us, um, me, my friend, and Pinky sit down in my living room, my old living room. And he says, if that's the kind of person you think I am, why do you have me around? I've killed people. I'll kill you right now. Fraud is nothing to me. I don't scam people, I don't fraud people, that's petty and this and that. And he got really, really, really mad that I would even think something like that.
SPEAKER_06His disingenuous outrage is infuriating. Soon, even more red flags began to emerge. Like the way Frenchie would always speak for his son.
SPEAKER_07I would try to say, Would you and Pinky like something to eat? Would you guys like to, you know, come grab something? Oh no, Pinky's fine, just leave him. He's fine. He he doesn't want anything. He doesn't want anything to do with anyone. Just leave him. And he wasn't allowed to really be with any one of us unattended, like without Frenchie there.
SPEAKER_06Now that you know what you know, why do you think he was doing that?
SPEAKER_07I think maybe he didn't fully trust Pinky to be as sneaky as him.
SPEAKER_06Other inconsistencies come out too, like the whole father-son thing.
SPEAKER_07So at first they were blood, like that was his blood son, like his biological son. And then afterwards, Frenchie started referring to him as an adoptive son. And that was kind of one of my first red flags. And I was like, Well, why would you say that that's your like actual son? And then it not be your actual son. Like, and then later, like admit it, like catch yourself in that line. You know what I mean? Actually, it was my ex that pointed it out. He was like, Well, I thought that was his biological son. Why is all of a sudden he's not? And he actually said something to Frenchie, and Frenchie stumbled on his words and he created some big elaborate story to why he said it.
SPEAKER_06And then there's Frenchie's alleged Crohn's.
SPEAKER_07One thing that really got me, because like I have borderline crohnes, he would say, Oh, I can't eat rice, pastas, breads, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, no candy, no chocolate, none of this. And then he would go and get a McChicken and fries from McDonald's like every day. He also didn't have any scars. He claimed he went for surgery, and this all came about after the fact. Me and my friend, we looked at each other and we were like, Where's the scar? He never showed us the scar.
SPEAKER_06Kyra is also increasingly frustrated with the lawyer friend she hooked her up with to win custody of her son.
SPEAKER_07There was $2,000 given for a retainer, and I hadn't seen any results. I was asking about it every single day. Well, what's wrong with her? Well, she's really cold and she won't move. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I freak out. And you know, I take her to the vet and we do all these tests. There's no bacteria or anything. We did an x-ray, we did the um autopsy on her afterwards, and it came back to neck and spine trauma, which absolutely shattered me. Shattered me because she was such a sweet little girl.
SPEAKER_06Kyra says French disappeared the day of the injury, but came back the next day.
SPEAKER_07And I was distraught. I she was my baby. I was very upset. And one of the other ones had peed on his sleeping bag. And he said, Do you know what I do to cats that do shit like this? I killed them. I killed my girlfriend's cat. I was baffled. And like, that's the one thing it rings in my mind. And I always think, like, did you kill my cat, you son of a mm.
SPEAKER_06Although Kyra doesn't have any proof to link Frenchie to the incident, she doesn't believe that anyone else staying at the house could have done it.
SPEAKER_07My brother actually laid with her until she passed away, which was really, really hard. My son is very, very gentle. He doesn't have the strength to create that kind of trauma. And then my friend, uh, he has severe sleep apnea. He slept all day. So those were the only people that were in the house that could have done other than Frenchie in the morning.
SPEAKER_06Kyra also says Frenchie would fly into fits of rage whenever he was questioned or denied something he wanted.
SPEAKER_07Anytime I questioned his character, if my brother questioned his character, if my friend questioned his character's motives, even a story. If we questioned a story, say for instance, like when he claimed he went to the hospital and had surgery, I questioned how he was able to be so mobile after surgery. He got defensive about it, very defensive. And then we had to have this big talk about trust and communication.
SPEAKER_06And he would often yell things, things Kyra didn't believe, but disturbed her nonetheless.
SPEAKER_07A lot of it was um, he has nothing to lose. It would be like, I have nothing to lose. You really think that's behind or beneath me, is what he would say. I'll kill anyone, we all bleed red.
SPEAKER_09I'll kill anyone. We all bleed red.
SPEAKER_06Although Kyra and Frenchie's relationship has deteriorated significantly, she's doing everything in her power to make it to Good Friday. The day Frenchie set up for the custody exchange, where the lawyer would release her son back into her care with a custody order.
SPEAKER_07I was so Ecstatic. I went and I prepared the bedroom. I got him a whole bunch of new stuff. I was so excited. I had missed him so much. It had been three months at that time since I'd seen him, and I was traumatized without him. And um, that Good Friday, it devastated me. It really did.
SPEAKER_06Good Friday was fast approaching.
SPEAKER_07The next thing you know, I think it was the Thursday before Good Friday rolls around. I come home from work. My car's gone. That was my first red flag. What's going on? My camera didn't ding, it didn't go off at me to alert me that I was home. So I was like, what's going on? Something is really wrong here. And I didn't see the van. And I'm like, okay, so I'm spamming him. I'm spamming my friend. I'm I'm spamming my ex. I'm like going absolutely nuts. And I'm thinking to myself initially, well, he's not just gonna go and steal my car and not come back. Like, he's probably just borrowed it, and you know, something's going on maybe with his crones. I'll give him a day. But this lawyer guy's gotta be, you know, real. She started mobilizing to connect with the lawyer directly. I gotta reach out to him at least. I couldn't figure out how to get a hold of anybody. There was nothing in the court. I called a lot of the court places to see if anything had been filed. Nothing had been filed. I was devastated.
SPEAKER_06Absolutely devastated. She says Frenchie showed her a professional-looking website for the lawyer, but she couldn't find a trace of it in her history. She'd been to that site so many times.
SPEAKER_07I typed in keywords that I kind of remembered because he said the lawyer worked out of Vancouver, that's where the office was. Um, I typed in everything I could think of, and nothing came up. It was gone from my history and on Google.
SPEAKER_06And soon her worst nightmare was confirmed.
SPEAKER_07Good Friday rolls around, and lo and behold, nothing. He was completely dropped off of the face of the earth.
SPEAKER_06To add insult to injury, that same day when she went to make a purchase for her other son, her card was declined.
SPEAKER_07And I'm like, why is this declining? This doesn't make any sense. So I go onto my app and I look, and I'm like, who? I was like, I didn't send him. I reported the e-transfer immediately. Like immediately I reported it. And I'm like, what is going on?
SPEAKER_06Like, this is my entire paycheck, my entire tax return. Frenchie had e-transferred himself money from her account. In total, Kyra is in the hole for almost $50,000. The storage lockers, which she never saw profits from, and the loan that Kyra still owed on her now missing car, a 2019 Hyundai Tucson, which wasn't insured at the time. Plus, she had purchased other miscellaneous things for him, like cell phones, and never saw a penny in return. She is beside herself.
SPEAKER_07I felt so ashamed and belittled that I didn't want to be alive at that time. Like I didn't, I I felt so betrayed that I just I felt like, wow, if I'm not stupid for this to happen, then what is the point of me even breathing, right?
SPEAKER_06Soon after the discovery, Kyra calls her friend, the one that introduced her to Frenchie and Pinky, to vent, and to ask whether he's heard from them. Her friend used to do drugs and party with Frenchie in downtown Vancouver. They also got involved in some low-level scams. While they're talking about his disappearance with her money and her car, her friend sends Kyra a link to the Stop the March Madness campaign, organized by Andrea Kim and Jody.
SPEAKER_07I questioned him right away, how did you find that? Where did that come from? Like he was like, oh, I just I typed in, um, he's like, he gave me his real name, is what he said to me at first. He gave me his real name, so I just typed in his real name, and that's what I found.
SPEAKER_06It turns out that Kyra's friend knew a little bit more about Frenchie's past than he was letting on, including his real name, Marcel Vautour. Marcel had revealed to him that he used to do romance cons, but he claimed he didn't do that anymore.
SPEAKER_07I made my friend talk to me about it eventually when I finally kind of opened up as far as saying that um he only went after, and I I hate because it crushes me, it makes me feel sick to even say it. Uh, stupid old ugly women.
SPEAKER_06Stupid old ugly women. Disgusting. In that one comment, we know exactly who Marcel Andre Vautour is. After finding all of this out, Kyra immediately went to the banks and to the police.
SPEAKER_07And said to the banks, I'm not just gonna go and give my entire tax return and my entire paycheck um to a friend. This doesn't make any sense. Why can't you get me my money back? I didn't send this. It's hard to prove it because it was an e-transfer. And they said, Well, we have third factor authentication, and because we have that set up, we don't have to help you basically.
SPEAKER_06We heard the same thing in Jody's case. Even when you claim someone infiltrated your bank account, when that money comes in and out of your own account, it's very difficult to prove that you didn't send it yourself, that you didn't loan someone money and now regret it.
SPEAKER_07They wouldn't help me, they wouldn't give me my money back, nothing. So I just I I gave up. She says the police were also unhelpful. I called the police, I made a file, and um, they didn't really pursue the theft, like the money. I spoke to an officer twice about my car. Like, you stole my car, you stole my livelihood. How am I supposed to do anything? And um, they said, Oh, it's it's common. A lot of cars are going missing nowadays. I've reached out a couple of times, I still haven't heard anything back, they do nothing.
SPEAKER_06Kyra says the local police told her if she wants a warrant, she would have to present proof that Frenchie and Pinky stole her car. But he sabotaged my cameras.
SPEAKER_07All of the memory was gone and they were unplugged, so it was completely erased.
SPEAKER_06I'm not surprised by this response. The other women have heard the same in their reports to police. The onus is on the victim to prove there was wrongdoing, which, as we know, can be difficult in these cases. Now looking back, Kyra realized she essentially gave Marcel open license to steal from her.
SPEAKER_07I gave him this big long statement for the custody battle for my son. And um, with all of my information, with all of the opposing party's information as well, all of my son's information, everything, like almost down. Like I basically could have just given him my social insurance number and said, here you go, type thing.
SPEAKER_06This hits Kyra pretty hard. He preyed on her at her most vulnerable, on the brink of losing her son to steal her information. So on top of the storage locker scam, the custody scam, and his usual phone scam, where he gets people to purchase phones for him under their own name, I asked Kyra if she can remember any other schemes. She remembered another story Marcel had told her.
SPEAKER_07He said he couldn't go to Quebec. And he actually told me a story that before he met Pinky, he was in Quebec and he had an interaction with the police there. He used a fake name with a fake ID and was completely fine, and he was gonna stay. He claimed to Kyra that he does this all the time. He says he goes through a lot of them. He said he has a guy that he orders, like if if one of them gets compromised, he'll go and see the guy and he'll get a new one, sometimes three at a time.
SPEAKER_06His guy's name is Big Mike, a recurring character in Marcel's stories. Usually he says his name is Mike Martin. He's been a best buddy, a coworker, an employee. And if you remember Marsha, who managed the campground in Nova Scotia, someone fraudulently applied for a second credit card on Marsha's account with the name Mike Martin. I asked Kyra if there's anything else she remembers that could help us track him down.
SPEAKER_07So what they do is they go to each province and um they go to a homeless shelter. As soon as they're in a homeless shelter, their first night in a homeless shelter, they're eligible for welfare. So they stay in that shelter until they get on welfare, and they'll have welfare coming from all different provinces into one account.
SPEAKER_06Marcel claimed that he and Pinky had been successful with this scam in three provinces already. Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Quebec. She suspects they headed east, maybe to Saskatchewan, to pick up one of Pinky's welfare checks, because that's where he's originally from. But she also says it's quite possible they're headed to Ontario. I make a mental note that he's headed east because it might help us track Marcel's movement.
SPEAKER_07Well, it's destroyed my credit, which I've kind of come to terms with. I need to repair it. I'm in the process of debt consolidation, and I'm also still battling in court, too, right? So working my butt off trying to rectify my credit and get it back to pristine the way it was, which I know that can't happen, but I'm still trying. What's worse is the way it derailed her custody case. It put me back months and it made it so paternal grandma had the opportunity to take me to court when it's a race to court at that time. So by giving me that big runaround with the fake lawyer, it gave her extra time. And it really messed with a lot of stuff and delayed a lot of stuff, and it put my son in those unfortunate circumstances for even longer.
SPEAKER_06After getting the Stop the March Madness campaign link from her friend, she immediately contacted Andrea, who then shared her contact with Jody. She found understanding and compassion. It left her feeling motivated.
SPEAKER_07I realized, wow, there's a big team out there. I realized, okay, we gotta get this guy. And there's nothing the police, the courts, anybody will do. And he is still victimizing people, still ripping people off, still frauding them. I went on to Facebook, I went on to Google, as far as premiers, MLAs, MPs all over Canada, and just, you know, screaming for help, like help us. Like the police won't help. You guys are supposed to be here for us, and you're not helping us either. And there was nothing they could do. I think I got a few replies back, and the most I got was to reach out to local law enforcement.
SPEAKER_06I asked her whether she thinks Pinky is complicit in Marcel's schemes, or whether he might be a victim too.
SPEAKER_07I thought he manipulated Pinky and he was making Pinky do these things that Pinky didn't want to do. I really feel for Pinky because regardless if he's wrapped up in it intentionally or not, I really thought, and I hope I'm still wrong, but I still kind of have that feeling that he's not the same kind of guy as Grinchy.
SPEAKER_06There's one thing I can't wrap my head around. Marcel usually pretends he's some captain of industry, and here he is pretending to be a homeless man working with an accomplice. So, what's the reason for the switch up?
SPEAKER_07I think it's more for a switch in victims to change the people he's going after because people are catching on and are talking about it. And a lot of the times, lower-down people that you know keep their nose out of business and just work all the time and you know are caring, empathetic, they don't really pay attention to a whole lot of stuff like that. Like me for one, I'm a really good example. I don't pay attention to a lot of the media stuff. I just I put my nose to the grindstone, I work, I make a living for my kids to provide a life for them.
SPEAKER_06She also tells me that during her time knowing them, Pinky did most of Marcel's boots on the ground work. He'd be the one at the flea market on the streets. They'd use Pinky's accounts for everything. Marcel clearly is watching his back and being careful. Kyra said he literally hides behind his COVID mask and is never seen with that one in public, even in the open air. Now, all Kyra wants is justice, not just for herself, but for the others.
SPEAKER_07All I want to see is handcuffs, and I want to see the look of disappointment and sadness, and I want to see that same face. I want to see those same feelings shed over him that he caused me and everyone else.
SPEAKER_06In Kyra's case, like the others, justice is elusive. There's so little recourse for these victims. The only solace seems to be in the community of shared struggle that they're creating from coast to coast. But it's not all despair. This point of contact, while devastating, added some lifeblood back to the case. Our conversation with Kyra gave us a lot of intel. We know Marcel is in Canada. We know he changed his MO. We know he's getting more desperate. And we know he's very likely heading east with his accomplice, Pinky. What we didn't know was how soon we'd hear of another sighting. This time, it's in our own backyard. On the next episode of Catch Him If You Can, we get a live tip from a listener of the podcast.
SPEAKER_03I saw somebody coming to my place of work that I thought was merch. I was convinced that I was making it up in my mind. What are the chances of this protagonist of this show that I'm listening to ends up on my doorstep?
SPEAKER_05This drop-in center, it's in the West End. This is actually like very close to my house. Should I go and see if it's him? Like, do we do we think that's safe?
SPEAKER_06Coming up on this season of Catch Him If You Can.
SPEAKER_09So even though he's been doing this for 27 years and does this all across Canada, you don't feel that it's in any way protecting the public?
SPEAKER_02I I'm sympathetic to to what happened to you, but it's situational. I looked at uh at the evidence, but in my view, the prosecution on this matter uh is not in the public interest.
SPEAKER_03You know, he's got a tensor bandage on his leg and arm, and he wears shorts right where the tattoos are. He finally had to take it off and I saw the tattoo on his leg.
SPEAKER_09It's shocking that just some, you know, random person was listening to our podcast, and the very next day he goes into work and he's like, oh my god, that's him. He's right here in front of me.
SPEAKER_00Jodie told me that he was supposed to be in rehab, but forget it, that rehab is in Vietnam now.
SPEAKER_08And he said Donald would not forget his tattoos, and he wouldn't forget his face because he stole from her.
SPEAKER_09We need a vision, we need to get a photo.
SPEAKER_06Catch him if you can is created and produced by Pink Moon Studio in partnership with Frequency Podcast Network. It's written and reported by me, Amelia King, and Maggie Reid. Evan King is our editor, Hannah Willis is our associate producer, Ryan Clark is our sound designer, Stephanie Phillips is our showrunner, Mary Jubran is our digital editor, Diana Kaye is our business and development manager, and Jordan Heath Rawlings is our executive producer. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Catch and Pod.