The Greatest Scam Ever Written | 1. Your Devoted Friend

Speaker 1 Chronic spontaneous urticaria or chronic hives with no known cause. It's so unpredictable.

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Speaker 6 I just literally remember my past lives. I just remember that I was this multi-dimensional being since I first came here, and strangers would come up to me and just tell me things.

Speaker 11 It's a rainy day in late February 2024, and I'm sitting in a cozy living room at a home in Toronto's East End.

Speaker 8 I'm waiting for Tara Green, a well-known psychic in town, to start my reading.

Speaker 16 Tara's everything I'd imagine a psychic to look like.

Speaker 13 Dark flowing clothes and bright, almost sparkling green eyes that make me feel like she's looking right through me.

Speaker 12 She starts by smudging me to cleanse my aura.

Speaker 20 Smoke curls up from the bundle of sage leaves that she's holding in her hand.

Speaker 6 People come in with all kinds of stress, memories, and entities.

Speaker 6 So I just want to clear all that for you.

Speaker 22 Tara's really trying here, but I just can't quite relax into this.

Speaker 22 Honestly, I'm not a regular psychic goer by any means. This is not my natural environment.
But I want to see what Tara will say about the story I'm looking into.

Speaker 22 About a scam.

Speaker 22 A psychic scam.

Speaker 6 I'm really glad you came here today because you're going through one of the most critical transits in your life.

Speaker 25 Okay.

Speaker 27 Tara hands me a pack of tarot cards, creased and faded from years of use.

Speaker 6 So I want you to shuffle them really well with your left hand and just think about whatever it is you want to know about.

Speaker 13 Will these cards reveal anything new to me at all?

Speaker 23 All right, so I'm going to lay out all the cards here.

Speaker 9 Tara flips three cards over: the wheel of fortune, the chariot, and surprisingly, the fool

Speaker 6 this is the wheel of fortune you're dealing with millions of dollars here right so the center is money right and people being the fool hmm and it's an international that's Sagittarius an international thing so people all over the world have been affected

Speaker 6 so you're you know kind of um delving as deep as you can into what makes people of trust why would they hand over their money to someone in hopes of you know improving their lives of course or their situations right?

Speaker 22 Tara's kind of right about my motivations here.

Speaker 13 As an investigative journalist, I do want to understand how the scam made so many people believe in it.

Speaker 22 Because we all need to believe in something.

Speaker 22 That belief is what makes us human, but also leaves us vulnerable to people who might abuse it.

Speaker 22 I'm going to tell you the story of this scam, a crime of epic proportions that took almost $200 million from more than a million Americans.

Speaker 22 To put it into perspective, that's 60 times the number of victims of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. And it wasn't just Americans who were victimized.

Speaker 13 The scam found its way from Canada, across Europe, and all the way to Australia.

Speaker 22 The scam was carefully crafted, using the power of intriguing copy to lure its victims into believing that good fortune was on the way.

Speaker 22 It required multiple law enforcement agencies, journalists, and citizen sleuths to peel back the layers of deceit.

Speaker 6 But there's somebody else I think that's like a wild card that you didn't expect at all.

Speaker 21 Right? Yeah.

Speaker 6 A big wild card here. It's going to be a bit shocking.

Speaker 22 The further down the rabbit hole I get with my reporting, the more my perspective shifts.

Speaker 22 What seems like a relatively straightforward scheme on the surface morphs into a crime unlike anything I've ever seen. One that taps into people's deepest, most personal desires.

Speaker 35 1.4 million unique Americans were victimized. Now, there's 330 million people in the United States, so that is one out of every 300 men, women, and children walking down the street.

Speaker 2 If somebody says the right words, promises the right things,

Speaker 2 anybody can become a victim.

Speaker 37 I said, what? You know, obviously I'm in shock, complete and utter shock. What do you mean, the DOJ?

Speaker 38 So he had a voodoo doll in his office, and he had little pins. on the voodoo dolls representing all the agencies that had gone after his company.
I just thought, okay, this guy's different.

Speaker 2 This has got to be one of the worst, worst crimes in all of history.

Speaker 31 This is a story about belief, about wanting more,

Speaker 18 and how far we might go to get it.

Speaker 20 I'm Rachel Brown, and this is the greatest scam ever written from Sony Music Entertainment and ITM Productions, episode one: Your Devoted Friend.

Speaker 22 I first came across the case we're about to get into back in 2020, and since then, I've been in deep.

Speaker 22 Because yes, it has all the usual elements I look for in a good tale: a cast of cruel villains and fearless heroes, eccentric characters, and strange twists.

Speaker 22 But this story is so much more than that.

Speaker 22 It's also about pure faith.

Speaker 22 The sort of faith I used to feel myself growing up in an evangelical Christian household in Canada. That's a world I stepped back from long before I became a journalist.
But it left its mark.

Speaker 22 I still feel that desire sometimes to put aside all my objective reporter instincts and just have faith in something.

Speaker 22 And I remain fascinated by what makes other people go all in on their beliefs. Our story includes millions of people all around the world who did just that.

Speaker 15 Hopeful people who put their trust into one woman they had never even met.

Speaker 15 People like Doreen Robinson.

Speaker 9 It's a sleepy morning in the late fall of 2009 in St.

Speaker 32 Albert, Canada.

Speaker 26 St.

Speaker 12 Albert is the kind of town you move to when you want your life to slow down.

Speaker 25 It sits on the Sturgeon River, which is popular with cross-country skiers.

Speaker 13 Probably the most Canadian activity, and I can say that because I'm Canadian.

Speaker 13 On this frosty day on the fourth floor of a newly built condo near the artsy side of town, A bunch of males slips through the mailbox onto the doormat.

Speaker 9 Doreen Robinson, a woman in her early 70s, peers into the bathroom mirror, preoccupied with the deepening wrinkles around her eyes.

Speaker 13 She straightens up when she hears the sound of the mail hitting the floor in the living room.

Speaker 20 She rushes to the door, eagerly picks up the pile of mail, and flicks through it to see if she's received anything from her kids.

Speaker 39 Her heart sinks.

Speaker 11 All she sees is a flyer for a local pizza place, solicitations from a charity, eye-catching coupons.

Speaker 25 She goes to toss them in the trash, but then Doreen stops.

Speaker 12 She notices a clean white envelope in the pile.

Speaker 24 There's some handwriting scrawled across the top of the envelope.

Speaker 41 Doreen,

Speaker 42 you have to read this.

Speaker 13 In a sea of junk mail, Doreen can't believe someone has taken the time to handwrite a letter and address it directly to her.

Speaker 23 It's been so long since someone has written to her.

Speaker 11 Doreen's curiosity is piqued.

Speaker 13 She slides her nail under the adhesive, eases the envelope open, feels the roughness of the 10 or so pages in her hands.

Speaker 15 She opens them up and reads a few lines, taking in the careful, cursive handwriting.

Speaker 32 Dear Doreen,

Speaker 42 this is perhaps the most important

Speaker 41 letter you have ever received.

Speaker 17 It's a letter from someone called Maria Duval, who claims to be a psychic.

Speaker 13 Doreen isn't one to believe in all of that, but as she reads on, she gets more and more intrigued.

Speaker 22 Maria is offering her wealth, health, and spiritual guidance at no cost.

Speaker 24 She's trying to look out for Doreen, and most importantly, she has chosen Doreen.

Speaker 5 All these are actual words from real letters voiced by an actor.

Speaker 21 I,

Speaker 42 Maria Duval, am going to prepare your personal astral clairvoyant forecast for the coming month for free.

Speaker 30 Seems like a no-brainer, right?

Speaker 20 And what Doreen needs to do couldn't be simpler.

Speaker 42 As soon as I have your photo, I'm going to be able to concentrate all my psychic strengths further.

Speaker 42 I will keep the photo with me for the months and years to come so that my contact as medium can be with you permanently, Doreen.

Speaker 42 All you have to do is grasp the hand of friendship.

Speaker 32 We are holding out to you.

Speaker 25 At the bottom of the final page, Maria signs off, the ink of her signature glistening in the light.

Speaker 42 I am counting on you and send you all my friendship. Your devoted friend, Maria Duval.

Speaker 11 Doreen clutches the pages to her chest like a lifeline.

Speaker 9 It feels like she's been waiting for something like this for a very long time.

Speaker 13 Doreen doesn't know it yet, but this letter is the start of an intense relationship she'll have with Maria Duval.

Speaker 9 And it will spiral into something much darker.

Speaker 2 It just pains me to know that such a strong and independent and financially sound woman

Speaker 2 could fall victim to something like this.

Speaker 13 Doreen isn't around anymore to tell her story, but this is her daughter, Chrissy.

Speaker 2 I was born Christine, but over the years got changed to Chrissy.

Speaker 25 Alberta is.

Speaker 9 Chrissy spent the last decade of Doreen's life caring for her.

Speaker 13 She is, by her metrics, on the south side of 64 years old, with a tangle of blonde, curly hair, and bright blue eyes.

Speaker 2 A few years after I was married, we found a small farm out by Stony Plain.

Speaker 2 We kind of became modern pioneers on this farmland, trying to set up our dream home.

Speaker 13 I spent an afternoon getting to know Chrissy, who was on her three-acre farm in Stony Plain near Edmonton, Canada.

Speaker 11 Her Chihuahua Aussie was glued to her side throughout the entire interview.

Speaker 24 She wanted me to understand what her mom was really like long before the first letter arrived.

Speaker 2 My mom was a very stylish woman. I remember as a little girl watching her,

Speaker 2 she would always put on the same

Speaker 2 red lipstick before she went out.

Speaker 2 And she wouldn't even look in the mirror. And she'd always have it in the lines of her lips perfectly.

Speaker 15 She even had go-go boots.

Speaker 13 Knee-high white go-go boots laced up the front.

Speaker 26 Although Doreen hung up her go-go boots in her later years, she still had passions that she wanted to pursue on her own.

Speaker 13 After her husband passed away, she moved into a little condo and put space aside for all her creative projects.

Speaker 2 She specifically wanted a two-bedroom because she wanted the larger bedroom to be her craft room. She She was enjoying her retirement,

Speaker 2 and then

Speaker 2 weird things would start happening.

Speaker 30 Chrissy and her brother notice that Doreen's starting to forget things.

Speaker 11 First, small stuff like passwords and keyboard shortcuts.

Speaker 40 Then, one day, Doreen's car comes back from the mechanic.

Speaker 2 She didn't have it for about

Speaker 2 maximum four or five days.

Speaker 2 When she got it back, she complained that it didn't go into reverse.

Speaker 2 She called my brother. He came out to have a look.
He says, mom, it's fine.

Speaker 2 And it was as if she had forgotten how to drive in those four days.

Speaker 9 Chrissy, overcome with worry, makes an appointment with a doctor, and it's bad news.

Speaker 13 Doreen is diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Speaker 20 She's in her early 70s.

Speaker 20 The doctors put her on medication to slow the progression of the disease, but Doreen's memory keeps getting worse.

Speaker 16 Chrissy realizes that her mom needs help day to day, especially when it comes to handling her money.

Speaker 2 It became evident that I had to take over my mother's finances

Speaker 2 because she was unable to remember where to fill in a check, so she couldn't pay her bills.

Speaker 10 In 2012 chrissy stays over at doreen's condo sitting down to help her sift through all the paperwork that's been building up in ever-growing piles around the apartment and that's the moment when something odd catches her eye

Speaker 2 when i was studying her accounts

Speaker 2 and i noticed on her bank statements the bank would give her um a copy of all of the checks that have gone through and I noticed that there was

Speaker 2 all those checks, usually for $59 to Maria Duval.

Speaker 17 Maria Duval.

Speaker 11 Chrissy had never heard of this woman.

Speaker 25 And yet her mother has been sending her regular payments.

Speaker 2 Sometimes days apart, sometimes a week apart, but all of these $59.

Speaker 2 And I, of course, I asked mom, you know, what are these payments for?

Speaker 2 And she either couldn't remember or perhaps didn't want to admit what it was for.

Speaker 11 Whenever Chrissy asks Doreen about Maria Duvall, she becomes secretive, erratic.

Speaker 40 Maybe it's her Alzheimer's that's prompting this reaction.

Speaker 10 Or maybe something else is going on.

Speaker 13 So Chrissy sits down and begins an investigation of her own.

Speaker 2 So I started getting all of her bank statements together. And here I am with a yellow highlighter going through all these current statements the last three or four years.

Speaker 2 I added up that she had paid out almost $5,000 to this Maria DeVelle.

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Speaker 11 Chrissy is floored.

Speaker 9 It's completely out of character for her mom to spend that kind of money on anything that isn't essential.

Speaker 13 As a business owner who managed the family's finances when Chrissy was younger, Doreen's always been incredibly responsible with money.

Speaker 13 And yet, here she is sending thousands of dollars to a woman she's never mentioned to Chrissy before.

Speaker 27 Has Doreen made a new friend?

Speaker 12 Seeking more answers about who this woman is, Chrissy goes through her mom's mail, and the same name crops up again and again:

Speaker 17 Maria Duval.

Speaker 13 The letters would start.

Speaker 2 Dear Doreen, you know, I hope you find comfort from your

Speaker 2 lucky numbers this week or whatever it was to get more goodwill. Please send $59.
I don't know exactly how it went, but that's pretty much the gist of it.

Speaker 13 Doreen has never been one to seek out psychic help of any kind.

Speaker 2 She was not one to believe in ghosts or mystics or psychics or

Speaker 2 what have you.

Speaker 2 If she couldn't see it,

Speaker 2 it didn't exist. It was just nonsense.

Speaker 13 Chrissy's unsure when Doreen received the first letter. All she knows is that her correspondence with this woman has been going on for a while.

Speaker 13 What Chrissy doesn't know is that there's been a steady stream of these letters from Maria Duvall for three whole years.

Speaker 25 And it's not just the letters.

Speaker 27 Maria's been sending Doreen gifts as well.

Speaker 12 Chrissy shows me one while we're talking.

Speaker 2 It's a heavy gold-colored ring.

Speaker 2 It's huge. It wouldn't fit anybody but a giant.
I don't know what one's supposed to do with it.

Speaker 21 But

Speaker 2 she would get these in a little velveteen pouch.

Speaker 5 You can hear the metal as it clinks here.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 23 I remember cleaning up her house one day

Speaker 2 and came across this,

Speaker 2 opened up the little pouch,

Speaker 2 and I said,

Speaker 2 Can I throw this away, mom?

Speaker 2 And she clutched it to her chest.

Speaker 2 No, no, it's so important.

Speaker 9 No.

Speaker 2 And she popped it into her jewelry box.

Speaker 11 Chrissy thinks this is junk.

Speaker 18 Junk from junk mail.

Speaker 10 But Doreen believed these were sacred objects, blessed by her own private psychic, her very own totem.

Speaker 9 These gifts from Maria would arrive with more letters, which would instruct Doreen on how to use them to bring her luck.

Speaker 12 And of course, ask for more money.

Speaker 30 Chrissy starts finding trinkets everywhere around the condo.

Speaker 23 Doreen begins wearing one around her neck.

Speaker 2 She truly believed that somehow this was going to save her

Speaker 2 mind from from going further into the depths of dementia.

Speaker 23 It's disgusting.

Speaker 13 It's a useless trinket.

Speaker 13 Doreen's deepest desire is to regain her mental capacity, and she genuinely believes that Maria's gifts and words of affirmation will help do that.

Speaker 24 This realization devastates Chrissy.

Speaker 14 She no longer recognizes the woman she grew up up with.

Speaker 24 Her mom is now under the influence of a force Chrissy can't understand.

Speaker 9 A woman she's never met and knows nothing about.

Speaker 27 Doreen's special friend is promising to change her misfortune and help her think straight again.

Speaker 11 An idea that she has become fixated on whilst all other thoughts slip away.

Speaker 25 Chrissy makes the difficult decision to intervene. With her mother's best interests at heart, Chrissy takes away her checkbook.

Speaker 8 But this doesn't stop Doreen sending money to Maria.

Speaker 2 I had discovered that mom had walked down to the bank, it was about three blocks away,

Speaker 2 had pulled some money out, I can't remember how much, but a few hundred, came home, and she tried to

Speaker 2 send off

Speaker 2 $59 in paper and coins.

Speaker 2 It was mind-boggling, gob-smacking.

Speaker 21 Just, oh.

Speaker 9 It's like these letters were, I don't know, a type of addiction for Doreen.

Speaker 11 She was hooked.

Speaker 9 And as her health deteriorated, her relationship with Maria only deepened.

Speaker 14 Chrissy never quite understood what compelled her mom to continue this relationship with Maria Duval, even when she could barely remember her own children's names.

Speaker 10 But maybe Maria simply gave her mom something to believe in, something to hope for.

Speaker 2 Mom would go down to the

Speaker 2 foyer of the building to collect her mail,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 she would just get so excited to open up her little mailbox, and she'd be packing her arm full of mail, and just, it was making her day.

Speaker 47 And in moments of clarity, did she also realize that this was a scam, or did she get embarrassed sort of in those brief instances where maybe she realized what she was doing?

Speaker 2 I'm not sure that my mom ever realized that this was a scam.

Speaker 2 Perhaps in my lecturing her, she might have understood for half an hour. But later in the day or the next day, it's all forgotten.

Speaker 19 Doreen passed away on September 20th, 2014, surrounded by her three kids in a local nursing home.

Speaker 11 Chrissy's two brothers tried to close the chapter and forget about Maria Duvall.

Speaker 22 But Chrissy had taken on most of Doreen's care in her final years, watching helplessly as those letters stole her mother's attention, took away her focus, and her hard-earned cash.

Speaker 29 She can't move on so easily.

Speaker 13 A few days after Doreen's death, Chrissy decides she needs to know who this Maria Duvall woman really is.

Speaker 13 So she shares her story on an online message board where people swap information about scams.

Speaker 2 And I sat down and I just angrily banged out, I don't know, two or three paragraphs

Speaker 2 about my experience, my mother's experience with it.

Speaker 9 She waits, wondering if anyone will reply.

Speaker 13 Chrissy doesn't know it yet, but this scam goes way beyond her mom, way beyond the city of St.

Speaker 9 Albert, and way beyond even Canada.

Speaker 13 And she's not the only one seeking answers about Maria Duvall.

Speaker 45 I get hurt in the pit of my stomach when I see people being victimized. I'm not going to let anybody else fall for this.

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Speaker 39 And did you ever try digging around, researching, figuring out who's behind the letters?

Speaker 9 I phoned the police.

Speaker 2 I phoned the post office.

Speaker 2 And neither one was of any help. When the police tell me, well, it's buy or beware.
Your mother should have been aware.

Speaker 2 It was, oh, okay, end of story.

Speaker 9 I can't imagine the frustration of feeling like every door has been slammed shut in your face.

Speaker 15 when the people you assume will be there to protect you refuse to help.

Speaker 10 But help can come from the most unexpected places.

Speaker 45 I got this letter in the mailbox addressed to myself personally

Speaker 45 from Maria Duval. It was like a huge package with about 10 pages in it and pictures of tokens, magic tokens that if you got this token and sent her $10 or whatever it was, $20,

Speaker 45 she would provide you with more things to help solve your problems.

Speaker 11 So you just happened to get this letter in your mailbox.

Speaker 45 Yeah, everybody in my, I live in a townhouse community with about 40, 40 units, and every single one of us got it.

Speaker 13 This is Dr. Terry Polavoy.

Speaker 12 He's a 79-year-old retired pediatrician based in Waterloo, Ontario, a couple hours outside Toronto.

Speaker 25 Terry has spent his life working to protect people and not just patients in his medical practice.

Speaker 13 He's taken to spending his spare time working as an amateur scam buster, a vigilante of sorts, hunting down and exposing fraudsters and con artists online.

Speaker 22 It's his life's passion, and he could spend all day telling you about it. Trust me, I know.

Speaker 45 Well, I think if I had not been working all these years trying to expose scams, on the internet, life would have been a lot simpler for me. And I don't think I'm I'm going to stop doing it,

Speaker 21 even though my wife wants me to stop doing it.

Speaker 13 And so when Terry receives this big dossier in the mail from someone named Maria Duvall, his spidey senses are immediately tingling.

Speaker 45 It was an out-and-out scam from somebody you never heard of. And as soon as you see the name psychic pops to mind, you say to yourself, I'm not going to let anybody else fall for this.

Speaker 45 I'll do my best to try and stop people from falling for it.

Speaker 12 Terry's outrage sparks him into action.

Speaker 11 At first, Terry goes down the same route Chrissy does and tries to report the letters to the authorities.

Speaker 45 And so I took the package, the whole entire package I received, down to our local postal distribution center, and they looked at me really funny, saying, you really expect us to do something about this?

Speaker 11 With the Postal Service a dead end, Terry takes matters into his own hands.

Speaker 45 So, yeah, I was in the blog-making mode in those days.

Speaker 11 He goes onto his blog and puts out a plea for any information about the mysterious Maria Duval.

Speaker 13 And 2,000 miles away in St.

Speaker 11 Albert, Chrissy has come to the same realization.

Speaker 13 She's going to get no help from the authorities in getting justice for her mother, Doreen.

Speaker 11 The truth is, the police see this as a classic case of buyer beware.

Speaker 13 Doreen willingly sent the money in exchange for a service, so the fault lies with her.

Speaker 13 And so Chrissy, in her fury and grief, also turns to the internet for clues about the woman who had taken over the final years of her mother's life.

Speaker 2 I opened up my laptop

Speaker 2 and I went to a site called

Speaker 2 ripoffreport.com,

Speaker 2 which I believe is a consumer awareness site.

Speaker 17 Now, my first instinct from the very start of all of this would have been to go straight to Google and type in Maria Duvall.

Speaker 27 But you have to remember that at first, Chrissy genuinely believed in Maria Duvall.

Speaker 22 She may have had deep misgivings about her mother sending money to this mysterious woman, but she had no reason to think that her mother's pen pal was also sending personalized letters to dozens of other people, let alone hundreds of thousands of other people.

Speaker 24 Chrissy had seen Maria's scrawled writing in black and white, the handwritten signatures, the details about her mom only an intimate friend would know.

Speaker 13 But now, finally, Chrissy finds herself typing in the name Maria Duvall on a scam complaint website and hitting search.

Speaker 14 It's a total shot in the dark.

Speaker 26 She waits as the browser loads.

Speaker 2 And that's kind of when my eyes were opened.

Speaker 11 Chrissy takes in what's on the screen in front of her and realizes this is much, much bigger than just her mom.

Speaker 13 Across the world, thousands of people have been receiving the same letters and responding by sending their life savings to the exact same Maria Duval.

Speaker 13 Doreen had given a chunk of her own savings to Maria, but it didn't leave her destitute. For many others, it was a different story.

Speaker 2 I am so absolutely sick of receiving letters from Maria Duval.

Speaker 34 She could never have enough.

Speaker 48 She wrote to me and said that she had good news for me and

Speaker 48 I'm special.

Speaker 2 She's been getting them now for over 10 years.

Speaker 34 She was eagerly waiting on my disability check.

Speaker 34 She's the biggest scammer ever.

Speaker 48 And I believed I sent more money.

Speaker 34 She should be imprisoned immediately so she could die there.

Speaker 38 Lost my job.

Speaker 25 And none of the crap she boasts about has happened.

Speaker 48 And almost my husband because of her.

Speaker 34 Shame on you, evil woman.

Speaker 48 I wished she would just leave leave me alone.

Speaker 2 When I

Speaker 2 saw the scope of these victims,

Speaker 2 people who couldn't afford to pay their electric bill or their water bill, they'd been without water for two months, or they couldn't afford to get their groceries. And all they wanted in return was

Speaker 2 whatever it was that Maria Duval was promising them: health, wealth, and happiness.

Speaker 44 It really

Speaker 2 makes a sane person

Speaker 2 question

Speaker 2 how another sane person

Speaker 2 could attack people that are vulnerable and are wishing for something so bad that they'll cling to

Speaker 2 this ridiculous notion of amulets and lucky numbers.

Speaker 2 Like, oh my goodness, this has got to be one of the worst, worst crimes in all of history.

Speaker 5 Back in Ontario, Terry also realizes that so many people saw Maria Duvall as their personal psychic, helping them and them alone.

Speaker 45 So I have a couple of dozen maybe people from around North America, I think even including Australia, that posted short notes about, oh, I got the exact same package you did.

Speaker 22 As the weeks go on, Terry's inundated with messages from across the world. It's not just America, it's England, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia.

Speaker 16 The same message again and again and again.

Speaker 25 It's an impossible amount of letters.

Speaker 13 How could something so insidious make its way into people's homes and through their trusted mail systems so easily?

Speaker 2 My mother would have been getting 30 to 40 letters in a week.

Speaker 13 Terry and Chrissy have individually had their eyes open to the scale of the Maria Duval operation, but they're no closer to figuring out who this woman is.

Speaker 2 I was angry and upset and feeling jilted on behalf of my mother.

Speaker 2 I wanted to know who was responsible for this.

Speaker 2 I assumed it was Maria Duval.

Speaker 10 Beyond a few old articles and some complaints in online forums, there was very little information out there about her.

Speaker 8 We know she's a French psychic with a skill for developing deep personal relationships with Americans, and they're sending her boatloads of money.

Speaker 13 Does this Maria know the damage she's done to Doreen and so many others?

Speaker 18 And how on earth can one person be masterminding this giant psychic fraud?

Speaker 22 My search will take us on a journey from a tiny village in the south of France to dumpsters on Long Island.

Speaker 40 With the help of a gun-toting investigator, an alien-worshipping businessman, and vigilante scam hunters, we'll reveal the inner workings of one of the greatest scams ever written.

Speaker 15 Next time on the greatest scam ever written, Maria, Psychic to the Stars.

Speaker 42 When I was a child, I had this gift, but I thought it was something that everybody had.

Speaker 42 It was only after several years that I finally understood that I was different because I realized I wasn't like other people.

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Not available in all states.

Speaker 22 This episode of The Greatest Scam Ever Written was hosted by me, Rachel Brown. Our sound designers are Luca Evans and Sam Cassetta.
Our mixer is Jay Rothman.

Speaker 22 Our assistant producers are Luca Evans and Leo Schick.

Speaker 22 Our producer is Millie Chu.

Speaker 22 Our story editor is Dave Anderson.

Speaker 26 Voices by Nevada Red, Gregory Burks, Kate Weir, and Marisha Serafin.

Speaker 22 For ITN Productions, our production manager is Emily Jarvis. Our executive producer is Rubina Pabani.
For Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producer is Katherine St. Louis.

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Speaker 4 Terms apply.