[MSN] Canada. Mastermind behind international crime ring gets eight years in prison

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 Mastermind behind international crime ring gets eight years in prison
By Tamara King, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Wednesday, November 7, 2007

	
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WINNIPEG - The mastermind behind a global theft ring admitted Wednesday to a decade’s worth of sophisticated attacks on banks, stealing a royal diamond from a museum and inadvertently funding terrorism in Iraq.

"Cunning, clever, conniving and creative. Add some foreign intrigue and this is the stuff movies are made of," Crown attorney Shelia Leinburd told court Wednesday.

Gerald Daniel Blanchard, 35, pleaded guilty to 16 charges, mostly fraud related, and a single charge of participating in a criminal organization for crimes going back to 1997.

The investigation that led to Wednesday’s conviction started with a May 2004 break-in at a new Winnipeg CIBC branch that was still under construction. Blanchard managed to install a tiny camera and a baby monitor to spy on the activity inside the bank, in particular, to see when its ATMs would be loaded with cash.

Just days before the branch’s grand opening, $510,000 went missing from six of the bank’s seven ATMs.

The night of the break-in, a Wal-Mart employee noticed a pair of suspicious vehicles in the parking lot the retail giant shares with the bank. He recorded the licence plate numbers and contacted police. Winnipeg detectives discovered that Blanchard had rented the vehicle - in his own name.

Justice Jeffrey Oliphant remarked Wednesday that was not a smart move.

Blanchard’s guilty plea covers a host of thefts at other Canadian institutions, including the Alberta Treasury branch and a Scotiabank, both in Edmonton.

But Blanchard, 35, didn’t stick to Canada.

In 2006, Blanchard and several associates went to Cairo, Egypt, where they donned burkas to hide their identities from the authorities.

During the same year, police recordings of Blanchard’s phone revealed his connections to a man known as "The Boss." The mystery man, based in London, England, was using the stolen money "to fuel terrorism," Leinburd said Wednesday.

The Boss was sending money to Kurdish fighters in Iraq, court was told.

Defence lawyer Danny Gunn downplayed Blanchard’s role.

"There is no evidence that suggests Mr. Blanchard knew this was funding terrorism in any way," Gunn told the court.

Blanchard’s international travel stretches back as far as his crimes.

In June 1998, he was spotted in the museum at an Austrian castle that housed the Koechert Diamond Pearl hairpin. It was once owned by Austria’s Queen Elisabeth and has a great historical and sentimental value to the nation, said Leinburd.

Several weeks later, Austrian authorities noticed the original hairpin was missing. Exactly when it disappeared is a mystery - it had been replaced with a cheap replica available in the museum’s gift shop.

The royal hairpin’s location remained a mystery until nine years later. After he was arrested in January 2007 for the bank frauds, Blanchard led police to the heirloom, which was tucked inside a piece of Styrofoam hidden at a relative’s home in Winnipeg.

"The police would not have been able to find the ... diamond if it were not for Mr. Blanchard," said Leinburd.

Blanchard went to extreme lengths to change his identity - fake documents like baptism and marriage certificates, and even phoney press passes for NHL playoff games. He had eight aliases, which he used to open numerous bank accounts using driver’s licences obtained under his fake names.

"He would even go and take the actual driving test under the alias," said Leinburd.

Oliphant accepted a plea bargain crafted between Gunn and the Crown that gives Blanchard an eight-year sentence. With the time Blanchard already served behind bars, he will spend the next six in prison.

If Blanchard were handed the maximum sentence for all his crimes, it would total 164 years, Oliphant said. The plea bargain helped avoid what likely would have turned out to be the longest trial in Manitoba’s history.

"You’re no hero, Mr. Blanchard, but you would have made things a whole lot more difficult," Oliphant said.

Blanchard, who was born in Winnipeg but grew up in the U.S. and most recently lived in B.C., had previously agreed to liquidate his assets, which will net around $500,000. The money will go to the banks he defrauded.

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/stories_national.php?id=74053