[church bells toll]
Downloaded from YTS.MX
♪ jazzy espionage music playing ♪
OFFICER LARRY LEVASSEUR: I've never even heard of anything like this.
Nev-- Never even heard of it.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
It's ingenious.
It's-it's mind-boggling.
What makes it romantic
is the thievery behind it.
♪
- This is the story of a conniving, creative,
intelligent man committing frauds that were fairy-tale like.
♪
- Blanchard is probably the savviest criminal mind
I've ever experienced as a police officer.
- He's a professional.
He looks like my doctor.
♪
- He was like a James Bond kinda guy on the other side of the fence.
- He's been committing crime his entire life and never getting caught.
- It sounds like the script from a Hollywood movie,
from bank robbery and fraud
to stealing a diamond broach from an Austrian museum.
- Okay, this precious, uh, piece of jewelry was, uh, stolen,
but at least by somebody like James Bond.
♪
[prison door slams]
DANNY GUNN: Mr. Blanchard ranks at the very top.
There have been more factually complex cases,
but none quite as bizarre and entertaining
and unusual as Mr. Blanchard.
♪ jazzy espionage music continues ♪
♪
[birds chirping]
♪ light music playing ♪
CAROL PHEGLY: The son I raised is very caring.
He's very loving to the people that are important to him.
He has a lot of skills
that had he not put them towards a life of crime,
he could have been extremely successful
in whatever he chose to do.
GERALD DANIEL BLANCHARD: For sure I take pride in what I've done.
My story's probably very fascinating
because everyone wishes they could do the things that I've done
or go do these James Bond 007s.
PHEGLY: My son has had a lot of things to overcome.
He had learning disabilities, borderline dyslexia.
BLANCHARD: When you were a little kid,
people dream of robbing banks or making all this money
and living the lifestyle that I've lived.
So I think it's a fantasy that most people have,
but they actually never executed it like I did.
♪ light music continues ♪
♪
- If he'd have told me that he was gonna be
a mastermind international thief,
I would've just, pfft, blown it off and go, "Yeah, sure you are."
You know, "Okay, kid."
But he's always been, you know, as you say, a little guy.
He looks like a nerd.
You know? [laughs]
He looks like a nerd.
[Blanchard chuckles]
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
- When I was a kid I was very quiet and I kept to myself,
and I studied electronics and took things apart.
♪
Everyone knew me.
They knew my street name as MacGyver.
I would build like little electronic contraptions
and because I would always do these little jokes with other students.
♪
So I was adopted at six days old by my mother, Carol.
♪
When my mother and stepfather broke up,
we went from this very nice house in Canada
to basically being poor in Omaha, Nebraska.
♪ tense music playing ♪
Omaha, Nebraska, it's not the nicest place to live.
It's actually one of the worst, and only the strongest survive.
♪
I remember from early childhood
when the bank was trying to foreclose on the house
that my mother and I and my sister lived in.
I remember my mother crying talking to the bank
saying she would make payments and the bank didn't care.
♪
So I've always had this grudge against the banks.
We didn't have milk for the cereal, and I'm not exaggerating,
like, I used to use like, ginger ale for milk.
That's how bad it was.
So I had to go steal milk from the neighbors.
- [sighs] He never stole milk.
I mean, that's part of his story, but they did steal penny candy
and they got walked right back to the store to return it.
So, those kinds of stories I think are just enhanced stories.
[chuckles]
- Things weren't good for us
until I learned to go into the store and I could steal food from the store,
which got my addiction to my life of crime.
♪ upbeat rock music playing ♪
BLANCHARD: It's a police officer.
♪
Are you video recording me?
CLAY: Yep.
BLANCHARD: You said there's a police officer?
- He wasn't shy about it.
He'd tell the kids in class what he was doin'.
BLANCHARD: Record me.
CLAY: I am recording you.
BLANCHARD: You are? CLAY: Yep.
BLANCHARD: Damn, a police officer.
[Blanchard sneezes]
CLAY: Bless you.
BLANCHARD: Anyways--
Excuse me, sir.
OFFICER: Yes?
- Do you give lots of tickets for speeding?
LAURIE NELSON: I think he definitely liked the attention
from cameras and stuff that people our age just did not have.
CLAY: Thank you.
BLANCHARD: I'll see you later.
[door hinges creak]
CLAY: And here goes Dan running because he stole a map.
♪
- Well, like I say, I documented my whole life from back in the '80s
when the VHS video cameras were out
way back in the day, the big ones.
And I documented my whole entire life so I could look back and watch things.
- No, get away from me!
NELSON: People knowing, you know,
talking about what he did, he liked that attention.
- This was his way to make, make him known, make himself known.
♪
[bell ringing]
DYLAN HART: Gangs were super prevalent.
And he had a little, I think it was a slight speech impediment
and with his thick glasses,
you just would think
that th-this little scrawny white kid's gonna get killed.
BLANCHARD: Going to a school that's really tough,
you have to, like, make a name for yourself
in order to be accepted around peers around.
- How-how you feel starin'-starin' at the barrel of a... [echoing] gun?
- He could move in and out of these circles,
and everybody had a certain respect for him.
So he created an individual identity,
and that identity is the one that he carried through.
Uh, I'm gonna say the life of crime that he was living.
- Hey, look, she's busy. - Danny.
- Clay, you smoke, don't you?
[girls laugh]
CLAY: Hurry up, man.
- Shh.
[door bells chime]
[laughter]
[indistinct chatter]
GIRL: He's coming now.
[door bells chime]
BLANCHARD: Oh.
I had to run out and check the gas.
[girl laughs]
- Where'd those cigarettes go?
- Oh, you put those cigarettes up there.
[laughs]
Remember, you stacked them up there?
So--
[girls laughing]
- Why are you two laughing?
- Well, I don't know.
- Clay, these immature girls don't know anything, like--
Back in the early days,
I was stealing from the stores and it was all a play. Like,
you have someone go talk to someone,
you distract this person, you steal this, and then you could go sell it,
and it was a challenge to see if you could get away with it.
And I was pretty good at it.
- After he would pull somethin' off,
it was just like, uh, elation almost.
And you could see it just in his eyes, almost what he lived for I think,
and his drug was the thrill of... getting caught.
♪ Been Caught Stealing by Jane's Addiction playing ♪
CLAY: Let's get the shoplifter here.
- Please.
- [mouths] What's up?
- I couldn't believe some of the things he pulled off.
They were amazing.
- ♪ And I walk right through the door... ♪
JEFF FULFS: He likes excitement
and he likes doing stuff
right underneath your nose when you're least expecting it.
We looked for trouble to find excitement
because... you know, the normal life wasn't that exciting.
[laughs]
BLANCHARD: They got a security camera
even doesn't work.
HARLAN: It's not fake.
HART: It was jewelry, silk shirts,
cell phones just coming, and pagers being out there.
RadioShack was sort of like a go-to place.
♪
FULFS: Just the idea of walking in there,
distracting the salesman
and havin' a eight-millimeter camera underneath both armpits,
underneath the bomber jacket.
HART: Pretty evident even from an early stage
that he was gonna be, uh,
what I would call, like, a master thief.
CLAY: Look at that butt.
- Yeah, all those girls like that butt. That's the thing about it.
- ♪ Walk right through the door ♪
- It seemed like he wasn't satisfied, um,
and he wanted to take more and more risks, um,
and not just, you know, shoplifting something.
- ♪ The best stuff ever ♪
ANNOUNCER: Brought to you by RadioShack.
Put the whole world in your hand,
with RadioShack's new portable cellular phone.
A price and technology--
CLAY: Stop, I'm getting sucked in.
BLANCHARD: Back in the '80s, RadioShack was like the Best Buy.
It was like, the number one store in North America.
I'm a fugitive.
Freeze, or else I'm gonna blow you.
[device trills] [Clay chuckles]
BLANCHARD: We literally took so much stuff from that store.
Millions of dollars every year.
- It's a nice, strong motor. [steady beeping]
- Yep. This here, trying to steal them all.
And what ended up happening was Easter Sunday,
we actually cleared out the whole entire store.
We, like, disconnected the alarm, took everything out with a moving truck.
♪ tense music playing ♪
I just became too confident.
[indistinct chatter on dispatch]
PHEGLY: I was at work,
and when the SWAT team showed up at my house
and broke in my front door with their battering ram--
[door bangs]
- my son called me and he goes, "Mom, you might wanna come home."
He said, "The police just broke in the front door."
And I was like, "What?"
He said, "Yeah."
He said, "I'm sure they're here to arrest me."
[indistinct radio chatter]
PHEGLY: My house was a chaotic mess.
It looked like a tornado went through everything
and dumped every drawer everywhere.
I mean, underwear drawers. Hello?
What electronics is some woman gonna keep in her underwear drawer, really?
Well, we won't talk about that.
♪
BLANCHARD: Race played a big part.
I was the white kid that went to school,
and in the court system when they see this little kid,
"Oh, he stole some stuff from RadioShack.
"Let's give them probation
versus sending him off to juvenile school,"
it helped a lot.
It's recording? CLAY: Yep.
- Hi, my name's Dan.
I got back. It's, uh, 22nd of
um... October.
The 2nd of October. This is a commitment.
I'm stayin' outta trouble, and Clay's gonna make sure.
Alright. Thank you.
Hi, Mom.
Aren't you glad I'm home?
- I'm thrilled to death. Hi.
- If I happen to die, anything it's all up to my mom.
If I owe any-any money, tough luck.
[Carol chuckles]
Who knows what might happen? - What do you mean--
I mean, I didn't know what to do. I was totally dumbfounded.
I could not even fathom that my son
was this person they were talking about.
He ended up living a double life.
So he kept that life away from his family, the people he cared about.
- I ended up getting probation for, like, two years for this.
My probation officer knew about my past.
He worked with a lotta kids in my school, and he basically said, "Look,
can I have some stuff from RadioShack?"
♪ hip-hop music playing ♪
♪
- I thought for sure that he would straighten up,
but, of course, he couldn't let it go.
He had to keep on doing it.
♪
- And he just becomes smarter and better and bigger.
HART: We saw him remove parts off of a cash register
to fabricate receipts that were so authentic
that the stores could not tell that they were a fake receipt.
FULFS: We were coming back from Kansas City.
Uh, we had a carload of stolen merchandise,
and, of course, we get pulled over
and, uh, asked to come in for questioning, and he had receipts for everything.
[indistinct chatter]
HART: Figured out a way to make far more money off that stuff
by returning it right back to the places he took it from,
and they gave him money for it.
It was just shocking.
CLAY: What time is it?
- It's Gucci time.
I would keep everything away from my mom.
I kept stuff in the lockers at the school, at friend's house, in storage lockers.
♪
We're gonna make some money here, Dylan.
- I know.
BLANCHARD: What do you say about that, Mom?
Are you down with that?
- Wrong way.
BLANCHARD: No, we're doing it the right way.
Wrong-- PHEGLY: No, the sign says, "Wrong way."
BLANCHARD: Oh. [laughter]
♪
But she would always see me with cars coming to the house
with boxes of merchandise and I would just tell her,
"Oh, I'm-I'm reselling stuff
that I bought at an auction or at a garage sale,"
stuff like that.
HART: He would fill up U-Haul trailers
sometimes full of merchandise and return 'em
all around the country for cash.
- On a bad week we make about $4,000.
On a good week we make about seven, $8,000.
CLAY: Oh.
HART: A few good holiday seasons,
he was approaching sometimes six figures
of monetary gains.
FULFS: He went from a small-town little thief
to a money-making machine type deal.
- Open a wallet and you got a hundred-- you know, ten $100 bills in there.
You-you're popular all of a sudden.
BLANCHARD: When you make money like I do,
you could buy anything you want.
♪ hip-hop music playing ♪
- ♪ Get hip to it, it's a hit ♪
- One of these days I'm gonna own this place.
I'll buy it.
I had close to 90, $100,000 stored up.
On the backside of our house, we had these concrete bricks
that are two feet by two feet.
I would lift up this brick and I'd put the money in garbage bags,
and I dug a hole through the sand, put the bags in there,
put the sand on top and drop the concrete brick back on top.
I ended up buying a house at the age of 16.
My mom was really surprised when I told her I bought the house,
and I explained to her that I bought it through a friend
and I basically said, "My friend and I are splitting the mortgage cost."
And it felt good.
I didn't have to worry about money 'cause I had plenty.
You work hard, ladies and gentlemen, you can buy anything.
Come on in. [chuckles]
Look at our new kitchen.
Stove came from Mrs. B's.
The dishwasher came from Nebraska Furniture Mart.
These cupboards were designed by somebody, I don't know who.
HART: I think Danny progressed to a crazy level.
It was fun initially, but became very dangerous and dark,
uh, towards the end of our relationship.
And even not with the thefts, uh,
even in the street world with gang members
and other ways of trying to launder money, and, uh--
It got to the point where I pretty much thought
that he wasn't gonna be around anymore.
BLANCHARD: That fuckin' pig.
HART: Omaha fucking Police.
BLANCHARD: Look at that fuckin' pig.
I think the anger comes from being disrespected.
Everyone should be respected no matter what,
but when someone outright disrespects you, then you have a problem with it.
Or at least I have a problem with it,
and I'll make you pay for it. [chuckles]
For an example, a friend of mine set his car on fire
to collect on insurance.
- Yeah, You know, what it comes down to is, uh,
I-I helped Dan, uh, dispose of a stolen car.
[laughs]
BLANCHARD: And you don't realize
when you put ten gallons of gas on a car, how big of a fire bomb it actually makes.
♪ tense music playing ♪
And a police officer was nearby.
FULFS: And we both could've walked away
and it would've been no big deal,
but, uh, he chose to confront the police
and tried to talk himself out of it,
and it didn't work out very well for him.
- I immediately recognized the kid as, uh, as Blanchard,
'cause I've had past dealings with him.
BLANCHARD: He was like, "Hey, what are you doing here?"
I'm like, "I don't know, some car's on fire."
- And as I get closer to him, I could smell gasoline from him.
- I was watching him from afar
and at the time something must have blew up in the car.
The gas tank or somethin' blew up.
[explosion blasts]
FULFS: And at that point in time, Dan was in handcuffs immediately,
and the cop knew he was up to somethin', so--
[laughs]
Oh, it was comical.
BLANCHARD: They brought me to the police station
and the police officer totally disrespected me,
and I knew I was smarter than him.
I knew I was better than him.
- I hop in the car, um,
turned the scanner on, and I hear, "Suspect escaped from custody."
I'm like, "What? Escaped from custody?"
That's about right.
[indistinct radio chatter]
♪ tense music playing ♪
- More or less the police walked outta the interrogation room
probably to regroup 'cause this kid's outsmartin' them.
And in that course of time, yeah, he got up on the table like we're standin'
and scuffles way up of a false ceiling,
put the ceiling pad back and he was up on the ceiling the entire time.
BLANCHARD: I can see, like, the whole ceiling
of the police department.
I'm up there and then I hear the detective come,
and he was like, "Oh, shit!"
OFFICER MARK GALVIN: And we hear just, you know,
some loud footsteps coming down the stairs
and, uh, it's Detective Lieber.
"Did you see him? Where'd he go?"
And we're like, "Wh-what do you mean? Who you talking about?"
"Blanchard. He's gone. He's-he's gone!"
- Me being a kid, not very smart,
I was circling the police station thinkin' Dan's gonna jump out of a bush
and hop in the car and I can help him escape,
and that didn't work out either for me.
[knocking]
♪
BLANCHARD: And they come back to the room,
like, 30 minutes later with my friend Jeff.
And his exact words were,
"I came here to help him get away."
And I was like, "Wow. My friend's, like, really solid."
OFFICER GALVIN: We're searching for hours for Blanchard in the area,
and we're getting tired, gettin' worn out.
At one point somebody calls, one of the supervisors calls and says,
"Okay, we're-we're just gonna have to call it for the night."
- He had the patience to hang out there in the ceiling until everybody went home.
♪
They shut down the police shop, and then another fun night for him
as he got to explore the inside of a police department,
where no one's allowed all on his own.
[laughs]
BLANCHARD: And the detective that insulted me,
I took his gun, his badge, his walkie-talkie,
the pictures of his wife and kids off of his desk,
his Rolodex file,
and I took a bullet out of his gun,
put a happy face on it and stuck it right on the middle of his desk.
Took his police jacket,
put all the stuff in the police duffel bag and walked out of the police station.
♪
Then I thought, there's no way the police
would go to my mom's house to arrest me.
Why would I be so stupid?
But that's what I did. I went to my mom's house.
- He was wore out, he was tired, and that is his weak point.
I mean, he needs rest.
- The police ended up kicking down the door that morning.
I look outside the door and I see, like,
the SWAT vehicles going across the park toward the house.
- I was part of the Omaha ERU, Emergency Response Unit.
Uh, the SWAT team.
From the time we turned the corner when we were running up to the house
to the time we hit that door was 65 seconds.
♪
So we searched and we looked, "He's not here, he's not here.
Keep lookin', keep lookin'."
We looked in the closet several times, there were all these boxes,
and it took us, uh,
ten fifteen minutes to get all these boxes out of this closet.
There was a little cubbyhole, and we saw Blanchard hidin' behind, uh,
I think it was a cement chimney stack comin' out of the main level,
but he was just hidin' back there.
Um, he, he was stark naked, but anyway, um--
I-- and I remember that.
[indistinct radio chatter]
BLANCHARD: So they put me in the police car.
All the cops were giving high-fives.
"Yeah, we got him.
"We found the cop, the badge,
the walkie-talkies from the police station."
- So we're pretty happy, you know?
The officers are like, "Hey, score."
You know, we had had a stolen car, uh, an arson,
um, an escapee all in one night,
and it was, it had been solved.
We got the guy arrested, so we were pretty happy about that.
OFFICER JEFF BAKER: He was already cuffed behind his back.
We put him into the backseat of the cruiser.
Uh, the detective actually told me, "Be careful with this guy.
"Uh, he's kind of slick.
He got away from Council Bluffs Police Department last night."
So I was quick to tell the detective, "Oh, don't worry about it.
You know, this kid's not gonna get away from me."
♪
[siren chirps]
OFFICER BAKER: I'm not sure if he had ever been arrested and transported
to Central Station before.
If he had, then he would know what the practice was of leaving--
- Keys in the car. They walk-- They lock their guns in a little box,
then they come back to the car,
take you out of the car and take you to the jail,
which is in the basement of the police station.
And there was the news media.
[reporters clamoring]
- No, there was no press.
I don't know what the hell he's talkin' about.
Yeah, there was no press.
Um, so I get out, keys are still in the car.
♪
BLANCHARD: I jumped in the front seat,
locked the front doors.
[locks click]
- I just happened to glance back
and I noticed Blanchard is no longer handcuffed behind his back.
He's just like this with his handcuffs in front.
♪
At this point, my career is starting to flash before my eyes
and I realize what-what's about to happen.
[engine starts]
- And I'm screaming at him at the top of my lungs
that I'm gonna shoot him through the windshield.
The car goes into drive, there's a cacophony,
an explosion of noise and tire smoke.
[tires squeal]
- Police officer slightly gets hit.
[body slams, thuds]
OFFICER BAKER: Son of a bitch!
BLANCHARD: I smashed through the front doors of the police station.
The news media are still outside racking up,
and I'm driving away.
- You know, he's gone in an instant, out-out of the garage.
And I stood up and I,
I-I couldn't believe what had happened. I literally could not believe my eyes.
- Didn't surprise me 'cause we told him.
I know everybody was sayin', telling the cruiser guys,
"You gotta watch him. You-you just can't let your guard down."
So it was like, "Oh, my God, here we go again."
- Well-- [sighs]
Uh, I shit my pants and, uh, figured,
"Well, uh, this-- I, I guess this is the way I'm gonna get fired."
So I ran outside and I took my radio off.
BLANCHARD: And I hear on the police radio,
"Blanchard just escaped from the police station.
All units," blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, "Yeah, he's heading here."
And it's me talking to them,
trying to send them, send them the other way.
- Blanchard takes off and goes back
into the state of Iowa with an Omaha Police car.
He approaches an accident scene
that's being worked by Council Bluffs Police Department,
and that's Officer Galvin if I'm not mistaken.
- I'm just directing traffic, kind of keeping-keeping people moving.
I go up and I wave to the officers to go by
just 'cause that's normally what we do,
uh, and I see the guy.
OFFICER BAKER: He sees Danny Blanchard with no shirt on,
handcuffed and actually slows down and waves.
- He waves back at me.
I-I seriously thought for a second it was just in my head,
but clearly it was him.
- So Galvin literally like drops his clipboard,
drops what he's doing--
- I got back to my cruiser, I jump in, I take off.
He was weaving in and outta traffic pretty good.
BLANCHARD: I ended up getting off, like, ten minutes later,
took some side roads.
- Officer Brad Wright says, "Hey, I got it.
It's comin' off of Highway 6 right now."
And as he rounds the corner,
Blanchard is jumping outta the cruiser and running
into, like, a wooded area.
OFFICER BAKER: Foot pursuit took place.
OFFICER GALVIN: He starts chasin' him.
He's yellin' for him to stop. "Stop or I'm gonna shoot ya."
Officer Wright realizes--
He can see that he's handcuffed and doesn't have a weapon,
so he takes off after him and tackles him at that point.
♪
♪ solemn music playing ♪
- When your child is taken away,
there are all kinds of terrible things going through your mind.
He'd have black eyes, he'd have a fat lip, his face--
You could tell clearly that he had been beaten,
and it was difficult.
♪
[clicks tongue]
[voice breaking] I'm sorry.
♪
His day in prison, I'm sure changed him a lot.
He wasn't the same person that came out of there afterwards.
BLANCHARD: I used to do 1,000 sit-ups a day, 1,000 pushups a day.
I was in the best shape of my life.
I was given a seven-year prison sentence.
That drops down to three and a half years and you're eligible for parole after that.
And then I was deported back to Canada.
♪
[train horn blaring] [train chugging]
BLANCHARD: So the first day when I arrived in Canada
after being deported from the States,
no money, no nothing,
uh, Canadian Customs gave me ten dollars to take the bus.
I bought a nine dollar disposable camera, took the sales receipt,
photocopied it at Staples for ten cents,
stole a couple of them and started returning those cameras.
By the end of the day I had a couple hundred dollars.
I felt like I was on top of the world, back to my old self.
♪ light music playing ♪
PHEGLY: It was like starting all over.
And he would have to do pretty much everything on his own.
- When I arrived in Winnipeg in 1997,
I met this beautiful blonde girl,
and it happened to be Aaron's girlfriend,
and that's how I met Aaron.
And we became friends and I said to him,
"Hey, if you wanna make some money..."
I said, "...I can help you very easily."
AARON SYBERG: I, you know, I was 15 years old
and I had just gotten out of the Youth Center.
I didn't really--
Like, I was pretty confused and I was, like, getting into trouble.
Dan came along and he just seemed like kind of exceptional.
The first day I met him, he took me out,
we went to the, to the mall,
and he just had, like, these keys,
and he was opening up like, the showcases and stuff in all of the stores,
and it was just overwhelming
the amount of stuff he was taking from the stores.
BLANCHARD: Aaron, look through the mirror.
SYBERG: Some days, like, with the returns
he would make 30, $50,000,
but I think he was a little bit tired of it by that time.
He'd been doing it for, like, 20 years, you know?
We're in, uh, Polo Park.
This guy's up from the States. - I want--
SYBERG: Just did four years in Fed, eh?
He's out and he's fuckin' out and about.
Full of mischief and he's, uh--
- I haven't done anything.
SYBERG: Nothing. He hasn't done a damn thing.
This guy is fuckin' clean as a whistle.
Yeah. He's never done a thing.
MAN: Is it on right now?
[indistinct chatter]
SYBERG: He would often sit there
and stare at things for hours,
and sometimes we would, we would sit
and he would watch a store or a bank or something,
and he would literally spend eight hours sitting there,
uh, you know, eating candy the whole day
and he would be hyper-focused.
♪
So, I think that's when he started, you know,
trying to progress to bigger things.
♪
BLANCHARD: I was driving one hot summer day,
two o'clock in the morning coming back from a nightclub,
and I passed a Scotiabank in South Edmonton.
And I was like, "You know what? This bank could be taken very easily."
And then I realized,
why am I doing these small returns for small money
when I can actually just take the cash from the bank?
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
So I rented a hotel across the street, set up all my security equipment there,
watching the bank for at least a month and a half.
If someone was inside the bank, I was watching.
I'd studied everything.
"Okay, how am I gonna get into the bank? How do you bypass the security systems?
"How are you gonna bypass the motion sensors?
"Take them apart, figure them out, analyze them.
"Where are the police stations located?
"How are you gonna open up the ATM door?
How are you gonna open up the ATMs? How are you gonna get into--"
Every ATM has five trays, every tray holds about 80 to $100,000.
Measure the whole bank out. How many feet?
Practice exactly what I need to do.
Put tape on the floor, run from here to there.
It's like playing a chess game
because one mistake,
your freedom is gone.
♪
That taught me a lesson in life where if you're confident in yourself
and you plan things enough, you'll get away with it.
Like, who else can go into a bank and walk out with half a million dollars?
No one knows anything. Like, it just vanished.
♪ dramatic music playing ♪
♪
So my feeling is I could only trust myself.
So growing up, basically I was by myself
when I had to do things or learn things.
I didn't have someone I could talk to or take advice from.
[indistinct chatter]
OPERATOR: Scene three, take one. Mark.
- Okay. [chuckles]
My name is Richard Fedoruk,
and I'm the biological father of Gerald Blanchard,
criminal mastermind of the world.
♪ groovy funk music playing ♪
Okay.
My girlfriend was 15,
I was 17. We were kids ourself,
and she put him up for adoption.
I had no say. She was the mother.
And my older brother called me up and said, you know, um,
"Your son's here and he'd like to know if he could talk to you."
I said, "Sure, I'd love to talk to him. Why wouldn't I? That's my blood."
And I said-said, um, "Dan, just to let you know I'm recording you,
"so when I hit that rocking chair when I'm 100,
I'll have something to listen to."
And he said, "Don't worry, I'm recording you, too."
So it's kinda like, like father, like son, we're on the same page.
♪
Maybe he felt, um, rejected being put up for adoption.
- The way I see my relationship with my father is just friends.
He hasn't been a part of my life.
So I consider him as a friend, but not a father figure.
- Maybe what made him what he is,
I think he just wanted to show the world that...
[laughs] ...the smartest man in the world just got rejected.
- So I was in a new line of work after the very first bank job,
and every bank that I did after that,
I got better and better at my unique techniques
to get into them.
♪ thrilling TV News theme music plays ♪
ANNOUNCER: CTV News: Top Stories.
- Tonight, a sophisticated robbery at a CIBC branch
in the Polo Park area.
REPORTER 1: This CIBC branch in Empress Street
hadn't even opened yet, but its automatic teller machines--
REPORTER 2: Eight ATMs were robbed
while the bank was still under construction.
More than half a million dollars was stolen.
NEWSCASTER: It's got authority shaking their heads
over the high level of sophistication it took
to pull this off.
[indistinct radio chatter]
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: For me, it started as a... as a young boy.
[indistinct radio chatter]
- I was always impressed with wanting to be a police officer,
and, uh, that was my dream as a, as a boy
and-and the rest was history, so to say.
♪
OFFICER MITCH MCCORMICK: They were looking for the right-winger
on the, uh, Winnipeg Police, uh, hockey team.
They approached me about maybe applying and I ended up getting on and--
I just kinda, it was my niche.
It was, it was really good because it's a team.
♪ light music playing ♪
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: I've never even heard of anything like this.
Nev-- Never even heard of it.
An outright theft of, uh, three quarters of a million dollars cash?
That's a big deal.
Um, you know, that's a really big deal.
- This is a very sophisticated-type break and enter.
This is not something we saw every day.
Never saw it in 27 years of, of my career.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: You know, the CIBC just
constructed this brand new building
that was so secure and, well, it was circumvented.
♪
It was really quite a mystery,
quite a mystery how these locked ATMs
could have been opened so quickly, and then the cash taken out
and there was nothing to be seen, nothing to be seen.
♪
OFFICER MCCORMICK: People kinda threw up and said,
"Well, there's other work to do
and this one looks a little too hard to get done."
It looked to me that it was solvable.
So we formed a task force that we eventually called Project Kite.
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: Uh, we had a war room, you know?
Where desks and cork boards up.
At the high of it, we probably had a dozen, fourteen detectives, you know,
running around for us, gathering what was needed.
- We didn't wanna go to the task force,
but Mitch wanted us and we were forced to go.
- I think the crime scene just really was the open backs of the ATMs.
So at the time, nobody knew how the person even got into the ATMs.
- So, you would've seen media, movies,
and similar interesting thefts
or strange, uh, crimes that have been committed
that were certainly outside the lines of the norm,
and this is one of those.
- So we got a lot of ground to cover
to finally figure out how this happened.
BLANCHARD: Well, what happened was I flew
to Winnipeg to visit my family
and my grandmother was tellin' me
about how they're closing down her CIBC branch.
And I said, "What do you mean?"
And she said, "They're closing all the little smaller branches
"and putting seven or eight smaller branches
into this one big mega branch."
And that piqued my interest.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: There was a big sign out front saying,
"Future home of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce."
There, the seed was set.
- 'Cause at that time there was no securities on the banks
when they were being built.
No alarm systems, no guards.
It's just a shell, there's no money, there's no nothing.
BLANCHARD: So I went across the street to Home Depot,
bought a hard hat, a vest, put it on, walked in there.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: This was an opportunity for him
to put devices into the bank
that would aid him in the future.
Uh, I-- I don't know how people think that way.
- Well, the first time was pretty easy.
I just went to Toys"R"Us and bought a $50 baby monitor.
Screw that in there, plaster it up, sand it down, repaint it,
and within two hours you're done.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: So, he would've been able to listen
to the general contractor say,
"Okay, well, boys, this room's gotta be done
"by such and such a day because the ATMs are coming on May 13th."
So he would know that.
OFFICER MCCORMICK: As the bank is being built,
he's also putting ways to get in the bank, ways to get outta the bank.
He had gone into the bank when it was being built
into the back of the motion detector,
and he'd soldered the wire and ran it all the way back into the bathroom
so that he can go in there and go, twist.
Now the motion detector in the ATM doesn't work,
so when he drops through the ceiling later,
it doesn't go off.
- The preparation takes as long as it takes to build the building,
which could be several months, could be a year.
The level of patience is just mind blowing to me.
♪
SHEILLA LEINBURD: And so, what happened is he realized
that each ATM holds about $100,000 Canadian dollars.
All you need to do is figure out a way
to get into these "little safes."
And he figured out a... brilliant way to do it.
- And the way it works is that,
you know, he brings cart, has a fob,
and then he has, he has to phone in for a code that works once.
So he spins a dial, punches in a code, uses the fob,
and the door opens.
So it's fairly-- It's very secure... normally.
- None of that matters.
It's just show-and-tell.
It's like when you're doing it from the inside out,
modify things, you have full access.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: Gerald found a way to manipulate
a very sophisticated, well-engineered lock by just manipulating
some of the screws that held that lock in position.
It was ingenious. It was absolutely ingenious.
OFFICER BEN HAEGEMAN: The body of the screw
had been sawed through to about 80% through.
So now when they reef on the locking mechanism,
those already tampered with screws sever,
and they all peel back
and the locking mechanism swings open
and, shazam, there's your money.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: On the eve of when this bank
was gonna open to the public, they were filled with money
to the tune of about $750,000 cash.
♪
BLANCHARD: And I knew all that money
would be in my pockets,
so I just sat patiently and watched and waited until the time was right.
♪ tense music playing ♪
I felt like it would be better to have at least two people
because I figured if there's seven bank machines,
there's going to be four trays per machine,
that's quite a bit of boxes to carry out.
So I had my cousin be the driver for the vehicle,
and he's the one who wanted to bring his friend John Doe into the mix.
So that night when I did the robbery,
I climbed up to the roof,
had the steel bars in the air vents precut,
dropped through the air vents, crawled to the other side,
dropped down into the ATM room.
[thuds]
I could hear the fans of the machines and it was nice and quiet.
[ticking]
BLANCHARD: Once I twisted the two wires,
they gave me full access to walk around the ATM room
without any security devices going off.
Now, as soon as I opened the ATM machine, I knew the alarm was going to go off.
[safe door thuds]
[device clatters]
[alarm blaring]
♪ jazzy espionage music playing ♪
- He was able to get into these ATMs one after another,
probably within 20 or 30 seconds.
He just-- We could see by the alarms afterwards
that they went bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
The adrenaline rush must be overwhelming.
BLANCHARD: So I opened up the machine,
twisted the lock,
grabbed the four trays from each machine,
sat them on the dolly.
OFFICER WADE MCDONALD: The police officers responded,
checked the bank.
There was no signs of forced entry, uh, there was nothing suspicious,
and, uh, kinda cleared the call.
BLANCHARD: So after we took all the trays out,
we closed the doors, opened up the fire exit,
we drove away and then we went
to the safe house and started counting the money.
♪
[cash register dings]
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: If you're the bank manager coming in,
that morning you open the front door,
you look at the six ATM machines, "Mm. Everything looks good here." Right?
It's only when you go into the back room, behind,
where the machines are serviced,
that you would see each one of the doors open, right?
And the cash trays gone.
Everything is, uh, intact.
It looks like if I close the door, it would lock.
- They canvased the area a-and the CIBC
was in a shopping mall area and there was a Walmart.
So it just happened on that night,
there happened to be a Walmart greeter in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
that was checkin' for license plates, and when they checked the plate,
it came up to a Gerald Daniel Blanchard from Edmonton, Alberta,
and it was being rented from Avis at the airport.
And from there, Gerald Daniel Blanchard became a person of interest.
- Danny Blanchard, he registered that vehicle,
rented it in his name.
- You ask yourself the question, "How could someone so smart be so dumb?"
BLANCHARD: But I must say, when the police
were in the ATM room behind the bank machines,
fingerprinting everything,
trying to figure everything out, I was watching them.
I could see what they were talking about.
And they said, "Hey, this guy,
Gerald Blanchard had this van in the parking lot."
- Uh, the bank manager received a call,
uh, that someone from inside the bank, cons--
that constructed the bank was responsible.
[phone rings]
[phone beeps]
BLANCHARD [over phone]: Hi, I have a tip for you.
I know who robbed your bank, they're going to rob you again.
But this time with guns blazing.
You better be careful.
I don't want anybody hurt.
- That totally diverts the police
investigating at the time on two different tangents.
- So we're running one way,
and he's-he's running outta the city with everything he's got.
♪ thrilling music playing ♪
[inaudible dialogue]
♪
- You know, it's Gerald Daniel Blanchard, uh, from Edmonton.
Who is he?
We didn't have any intelligence on him.
- So, we make a phone call
to the Canadian Bankers Association, and we say,
"Have you ever had anything similar?"
"Similar?
Well, as a matter of fact, Larry, yes, there have been."
We learned that similar events happened in Edmonton,
similar events happened, uh, out east in Etobicoke.
OFFICER HAEGEMAN: The, uh, Scotiabank in the Branford, Ontario area.
OFFICER MCDONALD: Went to the Alberta Treasury Board.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: An additional CIBC.
TRACY OLIVER: Two or three at least there were in Edmonton.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: Scotiabank in British Columbia.
- B.C., we had in Alberta, we had teams locally here in Winnipeg.
- It started to get bigger and bigger.
- And we had banks callin' us.
- I would say probably in the dozens.
♪
- I don't think there's a number you can say.
[chuckles]
You can see the smile to my face, it was very good.
[chuckles]
- More details tonight from police
on the organized crime ring with Winnipeg ties.
- As we started to move along,
it, uh, it really started to expand.
- A sophisticated operation,
Winnipeg Police can't help but marvel at.
BLANCHARD: I was out of control.
I just wanted every bank that was being done
as much as I could.
And that's why I went from the bank in Winnipeg,
right to the bank in Toronto, from the bank in Toronto,
back to the bank in Edmonton.
I was just a wild man at the time.
I flew back to Winnipeg,
and there was a Royal Bank ATM machine sitting outside
of the drive-through.
I put the tarp over the machine,
and I took circular saw and I bought a diamond blade
that will cut through an inch of steel like butter.
[saw blade whirring]
BLANCHARD: The door popped right open.
There's $200,000 right there.
[sirens wailing]
BLANCHARD: So, I look out the tarp, and I'm being surrounded by the police,
but I had a backup plan.
I'm wearing a vest with six smoke grenades.
I pull the two grenades off of my vest,
throw them out from underneath the tarp toward the police officers.
Smoke everywhere.
I run a couple blocks away,
and I hide under this car
and before you know it, there's a dog.
Dog has me, I'm arrested.
♪ tense music playing ♪
So I go to jail, and as I'm walking in the jail,
I look to my left
and I see this room and it's like a classroom.
It has my picture at the very top,
and it has like all my relatives, and all my associates underneath.
And I realize there's a big investigation going on regarding me.
And the detective, like, yanks me and tells me,
"Mind your own business," as I'm walking by.
Strange thing is they give me, like, $2,000 cash bail.
- He was interviewed and then released
on what we call promise to appear on paper.
And he used an alias.
So, his true identity never ever came out
until later when we found-- we started running names
and-and doing background, and then we went,
"Holy crow. He's upstairs."
I mean, he was just upstairs.
That's when things came up
that, you know, Gerald had at least 22 aliases and different names.
- He wouldn't say it was Daniel Blanchard that did it.
It was one of his aliases, that would again, have no record.
He would be released shortly thereafter
of-of doing that break-in,
and then he's back on the street again.
PERSON 1: Down there. PERSON 2: You can see the green tower there?
[indistinct chatter]
BLANCHARD: It's not like the U.S.
Everyone knows here in Canada,
non-violent crime is a slap on the hands.
In the U.S. I was looking at 160 years in prison.
[siren wailing in distance]
♪
BLANCHARD: I knew the police were investigating me,
and they were getting in the way of my goals.
So, I would always antagonize them
if they caused an issue with me.
- Very early on, Gerald wanted to talk
to the people running the squad.
He knew our names.
I don't know how he knew our names, but he knew our names.
[phones ringing] [indistinct chatter]
OFFICER MCCORMICK: He phoned down to the major crimes unit,
posing as Winnipeg Police,
said that Gerald Blanchard was a friend of his
and give him preferred, uh, treatment, to treat him right.
He's just playing with me, right?
At one point in time, he sent me a-a text message
with a whole bunch of pictures of him sitting on a yacht
and, uh, driving a Ferrari
and, you know, money on a ATM,
just to kinda poke me again, you know? And just like--
- Pokin' the bear, I suppose.
[BlackBerry chimes]
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: He likes to tease a little bit.
He sent pictures when he was in China
and he's at an ATM machine.
He had piles of cash piled up, you know, wrapped.
[BlackBerry chimes]
OFFICER MCCORMICK: It's the game he plays.
It's the challenge he likes.
You know, he likes that challenge.
Much like we or I like the challenge
of trying to figure it out and catch him, you know?
So,
different challenges, but we all--
That was the most enjoyable thing,
is trying to match wits with whoever you're trying to arrest.
BLANCHARD: Well, Larry and Mitch,
they had sleepless nights.
They had no vacation, they told me.
They worked 24 hour days sometimes,
exhausting days, to catch me.
So, they put so much effort into me,
they felt like they knew me better than they knew their own wife.
OFFICER MCCORMICK: I hate to say it, but it's a game.
It becomes a game.
We're always thinking, trying to plan on how to, how we're gonna catch him.
How are we gonna get evidence on this guy?
How are we gonna bring him to, to the courts and-and prosecute him?
- Conditions of the courtroom,
all the rules around accusing people, finding them guilty,
that's a different world.
- If you don't have your evidence, you're done.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: There wasn't a lot there.
There was a few little snippets of good information.
This file was really calling for it.
It was just screaming
wiretap, wiretap.
- I-I lost the jug of whiskey besk--
betting that he wouldn't say two words on the phone
and it'd be a waste of time.
And he never shut up.
[static]
- The same day that we hooked up,
he was already active and involved in crime
and that's really when everything just took off,
because when you listen to somebody on a wiretap,
you really get to know them.
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
- He was livin' the life of Riley, you know?
He had money, lots of it.
He was keepin' company with, uh, the rich and famous...
♪
...beautiful women.
♪
[screams]
- Yeah, he was, he had the-the world by the tail.
[crowd cheering]
♪
OFFICER MCCORMICK: The aha moment would be
is that he just continues to commit crime.
It's not the money.
And you start to think, "Well, why is he doing this?
He doesn't-- He can't use the money. He doesn't, he doesn't need the money."
- Some of his crimes seem very petty,
actually almost comical.
[race car zooms]
- He would fabricate badges indicating
he was the press or, um, he was a special VIP
and get into Indy races.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: Or get a bird's eye view
of a Stanley Cup final game.
[crowd cheering]
♪
[fans cheering]
- He was traveling the world.
♪
- So as you listen to him more,
you start to get a sense of who you think he is,
and-and what he's all about.
♪
[Blanchard laughs]
- He does things just for the thrill of it.
He did a-a break into our bank
and got $600,000 and then very shortly thereafter,
he's shoplifting a toaster.
- There was this little wheel going round and round and round and it never stopped.
In my experience, the more you commit this type of crime,
the more you are in fact addicted to the high that it gives you.
♪
And you hear him on the wiretaps saying,
"I know I am being taped,"
and then going into the details of the crimes
that he has committed or potentially will commit,
knowing full well that there is a police officer
on the other end of that listening device.
By way of saying, "I can fool you big boys.
I'm just a little guy, but watch me run."
♪
- He deals with an, an adrenaline rush.
That's what it is. It's a challenge.
I have it, too.
I'm a professional fighter.
♪ groovy funk music playing ♪
I've said to people,
"I wouldn't be afraid to bite your eyeball out
"if it came down to it, or bite your nose off.
I'm not out to lose."
♪
BLANCHARD: While they're trying to chase me all over the globe,
I actually kind of enjoy it.
I see them there, they know that I see them.
I gave chase a few times to the undercover detective cars,
letting them know like, "Hey, I know who you are."
And it's like, "Catch me if you can."
That's my th-- my thought at the time.
PHEGLY: I wanna tell this story to let people know
that there is another side to my son and not just the criminal side.
When my son got sent back to Canada was when he met Ramona.
[Ramona laughs]
RAMONA: That's so funny.
- As you see, Mother, I'm doing good.
And this is my friend.
And your name is? - Ramona.
BLANCHARD: Ramona? - Poss.
BLANCHARD: Poss?
And she's flying to where?
- Germany.
BLANCHARD: For how long? - For four months.
BLANCHARD: That must be nice.
[Ramona laughs]
- Hello?
BLANCHARD: And-and how can you afford all these lovely vacations?
- Through my parents.
BLANCHARD: And what do your parents do for work?
- Why do you wanna know that? You know all that.
BLANCHARD: They're a real estate ki-- kicoon, kitoon--
What's that word? - Owners?
BLANCHARD: No. Real estate ki--
Cut. Do it again.
- We own estate, you know?
[Blanchard laughs]
- I had no idea that my son
was living a double life, basically.
I was extremely happy that my son
had found a young woman that I really liked,
and he seemed extremely happy with her.
He felt confident, and he was getting to live a life
that I couldn't imagine living myself.
♪ whimsical music playing ♪
They started, you know, scuba diving, they went snorkeling,
they went skiing.
They were doing all kinds of things
that I never had the opportunity to do.
I really, really liked Ramona.
I grew to love her, and she became a part of our family.
So, I saw my son being happy.
♪
[camera shutter clicks]
♪
PHEGLY: According to my son, financially then,
her father was helping them establish real estate.
So, there was no question
about my son being involved in any kinda crimes.
I mean, why would I even think that
when he got established with this family
who had money?
BLANCHARD: So I was married to a German lady,
and her father was quite wealthy, so we took a tour across Europe.
Ramona, nice?
And he received a private tour of the castle in Austria.
And that's when I saw the Sisi Star on display for the first time.
♪ Shining Star by Earth, Wind & Fire playing ♪
- It's the romantic part of it, of the whole story.
It-it truly is.
Which comes along kind of out of the blue to us, right?
Uh, we do an Interpol check
because, you know, that's, uh, w-what you would do
in a, in a high-profile file like this.
Uh, and lo and behold,
you know, we received this information back that says,
"Gerald Blanchard of Canada
is a person of interest in the theft of the Sisi Star."
- That would've been in, eh, in-in like '98, '98, '99.
That's a long time ago.
♪ Blue Danube Waltz Op. 314 by Johann Strauss II playing ♪
♪
CHRISTOPH KOECHERT: It is so much known and it's so famous,
these diamond stars because there's such a story behind it.
Uh, It's such an important, beautiful story behind it.
They're very rare and this precious, uh, piece of jewelry
was-was stolen and everybody was shocked, like, "How can this happen?"
♪
Sisi, the famous empress,
she was a wonderful, beautiful lady with long, long hair
and she used to adorn her hair with diamond stars.
And she was painted with her long hair with the stars in her hair.
And so, this got somehow iconic,
and these diamond stars are very much known.
- After Sisi's death and then after the monarchy,
it was not quite clear where all these stars went.
They were gone.
♪
We had one of the stars. We had one of the original stars,
which Elisabeth wore.
It was just, um, a highlight of the exhibition.
♪
BLANCHARD: Alright.
Birdie, who are you talking to?
Let me see your walkie-talkie.
And how does it work?
- Play.
And then it explains what it is.
AUTOMATED VOICE GUIDE [on device]: Empress Elisabeth from Austria,
nicknamed Sisi, was known for her impossibly thin waist,
and incredibly long hair.
One of the most famous depictions of her
is a portrait with her hairs decorated
in a series of diamond and pearl stars.
What you see now is the last of Sisi's famous stars.
BLANCHARD: I just couldn't pass up the Sisi Star
because it was so beautiful.
Like, it was shining under the light, sparkling,
and I knew I needed to take it with me.
♪ Strauss II's Blue Danube Waltz resumes playing ♪
[reporter speaking German]
[museum employee speaking German]
[continues speaking German]
- Reported to the police, the police came, and the police searched the whole thing,
um, and, uh, no, there was nothing.
Nothing.
[speaking German]
♪
FRANZ SATTLECKER: If you can't say what exactly happened,
there was a lot of kind of mysterious, um, stories going around.
- The Star was stolen, it's terrible.
But at least, uh, it's a very good story how it was stolen.
And, uh, all-- in all the newspapers, uh,
and it's still in-in the head of everybody in Austria.
- Okay, I have to be careful on how I say that
because if I outright say I stole it-- DIRECTOR: Right.
- then I could be charged in Austria for the theft.
So it was reported in the newspaper
that I had jumped out of this airplane
and landed on the roof of the castle.
♪ dramatic music playing ♪
This is the Hollywood version.
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: He said he was flown
over top of the museum, and he parachuted out.
♪
SATTLECKER: No, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no.
It would be absolutely crazy to jump down with a parachute.
- I know there was a parachute found in the garbage in the castle,
and the guards have a record of the-- finding a parachute.
- No. No, no, no.
We never, no, got any information about this.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: He climbed down the side of the museum,
he went in through a window.
I don't particularly believe that part of the story.
- The State Department has secured from the outside.
So if somebody would break in the windows,
if you opened the windows, alarm.
If you walked in the room, alarm.
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: The glass case housing it
with the security screws were removed,
a pressure-sensitive, uh, device underneath
was somehow cheated in a way
that it could be replaced with a fake.
- It was only until two or three weeks later
it was determined that it was a replica from a gift shop.
♪
- Yeah, it was sold in the shop. [scoffs]
It was a, a shop item, best seller.
- I'm quite astonished that it took them such a long time
because, uh, 'cause it's-it's quite obvious.
They look really different.
- Um, they must have had help
from probably-probably even inside the palace.
But we-we still don't know exactly
because Mr. Blanchard says he kind of did something different.
- Which one do I believe?
I believe he shoplift the, the-the gem
and-and, and went and switched it out.
I think the other thing is just to sell newspapers as they say.
- Actually I took it because I knew maybe someday
this could be a bargaining tool for future crimes that I had planned.
And it was a priceless item from a museum
and that's why I took it.
Plus, it looked nice.
♪
KOECHERT: It's boring to steal money,
but to steal a piece like that, who is doing that?
Nobody else in the world.
So you get famous if you steal the Mona Lisa,
if you steal a Van Gogh, or whatever.
There-there are maybe hundred of pieces in the, in the world
which are really special.
Everybody knows them.
In Austria everybody knows the Sisi Stars.
So, you-you get somehow immortal.
You get, you-you-- [stammers]
You might get famous through-through doing that.
And he did get famous, of course.
[chuckles]
♪ jazzy espionage music playing ♪
SYBERG: We went to his grandma's house
and he was like, "I need to show you something."
And I was like, "Okay."
So he pulls out the diamond and he was like,
"This thing's worth a lot of money."
And I was like, "It--"
To me it didn't really look--
Like, it looked old and kinda like grandma's jewelry, you know.
I was like, "Alright, well, let's get it up into the ceiling
"so we could get back out
and do whatever we were up to before that," you know?
I was like-- I wasn't really--
I wasn't really too interested in it but I figured,
like, he told me, "If we ever get arrested,
this is our ticket outta jail, so keep it between us."
- It wasn't until later that Interpol got information,
um, that he was responsible.
"A guy by the name of Gerald Blanchard from Canada."
That's all they had.
But it was right around that time that him and his then wife separated.
So, you can probably figure out where that information came from.
- Things changed for him pretty drastically at that point
after he and Ramona were divorced.
♪ solemn music playing ♪
BLANCHARD: At that time I was married to my wife,
where she really didn't know
the type of person I was deep down inside.
♪
She found out about my criminal past
and it was, uh, shocking to her and her family.
- He ended up getting into, uh, relationships
that, um, were more one-sided,
and I could tell
that my son looked worried and stressed.
♪
- He actually wanted me to join his Mission: Impossible team.
But I was too into my martial arts instead.
Like, uh, Canadian Wolverines.
Chuck Norris of Canada.
♪
BLANCHARD: I would probably say my right hand person was Angela James.
She was my girlfriend from the past. We trusted each other.
We had good chemistry and we worked pretty well.
And she was an hon-honest girl.
What's wrong?
- Get outta here.
Get that thing outta my face.
BLANCHARD: Fuck, you do this to everyone else.
It can't be done to you?
- I don't do it to nobody.
- It's sitting right there.
[friend laughs]
BLANCHARD: I could've stopped a long time ago,
but you always need that thrill.
It's-it's actually an addiction,
because I've had tens of millions of dollars
throughout my life, and I continued doing crimes.
But then started spiraling out,
once I met Sergei, or I call him the Boss.
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
OFFICER MCCORMICK: We had gone for the day,
and the girls in the monitoring room immediately phoned us.
I received a, a phone call from, uh, the United Kingdom.
The person had a, uh, English accent and, uh, he said,
"How quick can you get your crew together, Danny?
I need you to do somethin' for me in Cairo." Right?
And, whoa, what's that all about, right?
♪
- He's in Vancouver, she's in Edmonton.
Aaron Syberg's in Manitoba.
- "The Boss" is the only name we ever get,
but we understand him to be very, very involved
in-in credit card fraud all across Europe.
And that he, this is a big fish.
[phone line beeps]
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: This was a trip like,
"I want you moving tomorrow."
That's the level of urgency that there was to that call.
- As soon as he hung up the phone with the Boss,
he was on his-- he was the phone to Angela James.
- She's, uh, you know, a little bit beside herself,
doesn't know what to do,
and Danny says, "Well, put your mom on the phone."
And perfectly describes what they're going to be doing.
- He also included a, a person by the name of Balume Kashongwe.
- From the time the phone call came in from the Boss
to the time he was on a plane on his way to Heathrow and then Cairo
was probably within days or hours.
Now we're scrambling, trying to cover that,
trying to, to gather the evidence
and not really having enough time to put everything in place.
[ambient traffic noise, horns honking]
[indistinct chatter]
- Alright, thank you.
BOSS' ASSOCIATE: They find Saddam Hussein underground.
- We'll catch him.
BOSS' ASSOCIATE: They will catch the rat. - Yeah.
BOSS' ASSOCIATE: The rat, they will catch the rat.
- We'll catch the rat, we'll kill the enemy. [chuckles]
BOSS' ASSOCIATE: Kill them. You know?
America, it's like a movie, Hollywood. BALUME "KEN" KASHONGWE: Yeah.
- They believe the magic more than the truth. KASHONGWE: Eh. Eh.
[indistinct chatter]
BLANCHARD: What are you looking at?
- My ticket.
BLANCHARD: And where are you gonna go?
- Back home. BLANCHARD: Ha, ha, that's what you think.
So we land in Cairo.
We contacted the Boss back in England,
and we're all going to start hitting these ATM machines
using these debit cards.
LEINBURD: They had credit card recorders
that they had machines that imprinted credit cards,
and he went with people to ATMs across Cairo...
♪
...stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
♪
BOSS' ASSOCIATE: There goes Dan the man.
PERSON: That's him? BOSS' ASSOCIATE: With the master plan.
♪ uptempo percussive music playing ♪
BLANCHARD: And we were just standing there
for hours and hours until the machines ran out of money.
♪
After we went for the day, we'd bring all these duffel bags in,
empty them in the bathtub.
The bathtub was completely filled with money.
There was a lot, there was a pile of money.
- Obviously they were very successful.
There's video that shows an individual
sitting in a closet counting money
and, uh, as the camera veers in you can see,
uh, you know, a pile like three feet by three feet high of stacked money.
Uh, they were obviously having fun.
- Uh, we got some pretty specific information
in that Danny was dressed in a burka,
which is the typical customary dress of, uh, Muslim women,
so that he wouldn't be identifiable on any of the video that might exist.
LEINBURD: So there was this man from small-town Omaha
committing frauds that were fairy-tale like.
He dressed in a burka.
- So everything was good.
But Balume Kashongwe decided to
take some of the Boss' cards,
take some of the Boss' money,
and skedaddle off to, uh, another point in Africa.
This didn't sit well with the Boss, right?
And, uh, you know, Danny was gettin' some pressure for this.
♪ tense music playing ♪
BLANCHARD: We should go see if Ken's here.
♪
MAN: The door.
♪
[indistinct chatter]
[phone line beeps]
BOSS' ASSOCIATE 2: I said, what, did Mom and Dad grab my money?
- Ken took that money and bought blood diamonds.
He jumped on a plane to Paris and was thrown in immigration jail.
They found the diamonds and they got seized.
Now, I had no idea where Ken was.
He just stopped answering the phone. He just vanished.
- Blanchard was very amped up.
He was-- He sound concerned.
He said the guy that he was with had taken off with the credit cards,
that the Boss didn't know where he was, and he was now threatening
both Blanchard and Balume with physical harm.
- Oh, he's scared.
He's scared that, you know, "If they don't find him,
they're gonna find me."
- I'm sure he figured that Balume would be killed
because now there was guns
and now there was things where he felt uncomfortable and threatened
and was worried for his safety.
BLANCHARD: The Boss, he was freaking out thinking
maybe we were going to stiff him
for millions of dollars we had from Cairo.
So he sent another crew in from Cairo to babysit us.
BOSS' ASSOCIATE 2: Sit down.
♪ tense music playing ♪
[Blanchard breathing heavily]
BLANCHARD: They're basically his muscle.
They're like gangsters, you could call them.
Like, they look like killers.
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: It was pretty clear to him
that the London boss was more than just a fraudster.
I learned that he was the figurehead,
the leader of a criminal organization
to fund terrorist activities in the Middle East.
That's what I learned.
♪
OFFICER MCCORMICK: So Gerald's stuck in Cairo now.
The Boss not letting him go.
They let Angela go home, but they kept Blanchard there.
So I think he was pretty worried.
BOSS' ASSOCIATE 2: Sit down!
- I think he appreciated that the Boss was not fooling around
and not making vacant threats.
- He's got himself into something now and he doesn't know how to get out of it.
- And what he had to do was figure out another scheme to steal money.
[phone line beeps]
He was upset and he didn't know if he could trust us.
I said, "There's just so much more money we could make than fighting over
a lousy $100,000 that's missing from Ken."
[plane engines roaring]
[ship horn blaring]
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: He lands in Vancouver,
but he doesn't do what we expect and-and go to his residence and sleep.
He actually drives 90 miles inland,
and he attends to a bank there that's under construction.
And we know this because he receives a phone call from the London Boss.
The London Boss is very upset. Very upset because the three guys
that he just flew from Heathrow to Montreal,
he learned are now being deported.
♪ tense music playing ♪
[phone beeps]
[tape static]
- And now that call,
'cause now he's doing somethin' in Canada
and he's also doing something like what we're trying to investigate.
- It's beautiful.
It's absolutely-- It was our crown jewel.
Here he was in a venting system
in the process of doing another bank.
And we wanted to catch him in the act,
and I found out exactly where that cell phone tower was
and made a circle.
- And lo and behold, here's this Scotiabank under construction.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: We were able to confirm
that there was a projected grand opening
about eight weeks down the road,
and everything fit that fit his MO.
- So we start formulating a plan on how we're gonna take him down
and how we're gonna surveil him.
- It just cemented everything for us.
- There was lots of things going on with Gerald.
I know he-he was talking about how he couldn't sleep.
He was so anxious and I'm sure he was worried
about, you know, the Boss, who is really not this nice guy.
"But I'm pretty much, now I'm entrenched with him.
Like, what do I do?"
And he must be thinking in the back of his head that,
"The police may know more and-and I'm on a short leash."
♪ tense suspenseful music playing ♪
[siren wailing]
- His, uh, future would've looked very bleak
either paying a debt to the London Boss
with either his skin or money,
and/or worrying about, uh, law enforcement.
- This was serious stuff, and, and I think at that point in time
that's really scared him,
and, uh, it was way over his head.
♪
[siren wailing]
AUTOMATED VOICE [on recording]: Thank you for calling Canada Police.
- Oh, I felt the pressure closing in, and I felt the doors closing in,
being followed 24/7, your phone acting strangely.
So you just basically, you're waiting
for an endless day for them to come.
- And we wanna take him down
inside the bank in the process of breaking in.
But then we're blindsided by this information
that comes in through his text messages.
He's now involved in trafficking of firearms.
- Yeah, that's right. We got blindsided a little bit.
We intercepted some more information,
and it, it was very clear that Danny was middle-manning an arms deal.
♪
OFFICER MCCORMICK: And the information continued to come in.
"When are you getting 'em? When are they coming?"
And at some point in time we even saw pictures of the AK-47s.
[projector whirring]
OFFICER MCCORMICK: And we ended up having eventually
seeing that Blanchard was buying ammunition.
- Well, when I started reaching out
to the so-called Boss from England,
I started branching out into different types of crimes.
My motivation was greed.
Other people's motivations in the UK
were to help their own people regarding a war,
which I had nothing to do with.
- He turned the tables on us by being involved in this arms deal.
- So Larry and Mitch thought this arms deal
was illegal, and it wasn't.
I was never charged with shipping ammunition.
I was never charged for possession of unregistered firearms.
- We couldn't take the chance of those guns ending up
in the streets of Winnipeg.
What if people would've died from that?
DIRECTOR: They'd also said that you had a rocket launcher?
- [chuckles] I have no comment.
[chuckles]
- We wanted to catch him in the act
the night before the, the grand opening.
- The plan was that we would wait
till Gerald drove to the bank, got in the bank,
and then that we would arrest him,
which would be the-the-the signal
that everybody else would now execute their search warrants
and arrest all their people.
And it would go simultaneously so nobody could contact the other.
So at a certain time in the morning,
I can't remember if it was 5:30 Vancouver time or what it was,
it was obvious that he wasn't driving to Chilliwack.
♪
BLANCHARD: I noticed there was a lot more police presence
around that particular bank.
There was always an undercover car sitting close by,
so I decided to not do anything.
OFFICER MCCORMICK: We found out later that he actually was able to tap
into the bank surveillance cameras at the bank
and saw somebody that looked like a cop.
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: So a decision was made at that point
that we would arrest him
on, uh, on the evidence that-that we had.
- The authorization was to go-- is to hit his place,
arrest everybody across Canada,
and do the search warrants all at the same time.
Bang, bang, bang.
♪ House of the Rising Sun by Chase Holfelder playing ♪
- ♪ There is a house ♪
♪ In New Orleans ♪
♪ They call the Rising Sun ♪
♪ And it's been the ruin ♪
♪ Of many a poor boy ♪
♪ And God ♪
♪ I know ♪
♪ I'm one ♪
♪ My mother... ♪
BLANCHARD: The first time I met Larry and Mitch
was when the emergency task force
broke down my apartment door and they pulled me outta bed,
stuck their knee in my neck.
And they were like, "You're going back to Winnipeg with us."
And I was like, "For what?"
And they were like, "For theft of the money from the CIBC Bank."
- ♪ ...gamblin' man ♪
♪ Down in New Orleans ♪
♪
[crickets chirping]
♪ solemn music playing ♪
- I had no clue that morning
that that was gonna be a life changer for, for all of us.
And it was. When he called and said,
"Mom, I've been arrested."
I was terrified,
and I was desperate.
[shallow breaths]
It was difficult for me to try and carry on life
as usual or as normal with him there.
Sorry.
♪
[heavy sigh]
[sniffles]
BLANCHARD: The best sleep was the first night
in jail after I was arrested.
All the pressure and the stress of
playing cat and mouse was over.
- Sad, I find it very sad.
But on the other hand, he lived the life that he chose,
uh, which many people cannot do and never do do.
Um, he came across on his fantasies.
He actually realized them in many, many ways,
which most people don't.
And who caught him?
A Walmart security guard.
[director laughs] - That's what it comes down to.
One Walmart security guard.
BLANCHARD: It's not true.
I feel like I'm very confident at what I do,
and I knew they didn't have any information
other than that might be the guy who stole the money from the bank.
The police made it seem like, "Oh, it was the license plate of the Walmart."
It wasn't. It was John Doe.
John Doe was actually the one that went into the bank with me
to unload the ATM machines.
He went behind everyone's back at that time,
and to make a deal with the police
to get off on his federal gun charges in the States,
telling the police how the bank happened,
and that gave them enough information to get warrants,
tap our phones.
But the police can't discuss that because he's a confidential informant.
One day he'll have his day in street court, we can call it.
[chuckles]
I think he'll be left in a field somewhere.
♪ ominous sting ♪
[distant traffic noise]
SYBERG: My lawyer said it was one of the most intense interrogations
that he had seen,
but they were willing to, like, completely destroy my family's life
to get me to talk about... about Dan.
[phone line rings]
[phone line beeps]
♪ tense music playing ♪
AARON'S MOM: Well, I know, Aaron.
[tape clicks]
- I think it's Mitch, the shorter one with the mustache.
He took me in the hallway and he said, "Look, man, I wish you the best of luck."
He-he said to me, "You know, we really thought that you were gonna be the one
"to-to crack and give us what we want,
but, uh, I guess you're not, you know?"
[siren wailing]
[Angela sighs]
- Well, I felt betrayal when it came to Angela
cooperating with the police.
But you know what? I'm a forgiveful type of person.
[chuckles]
And then once everybody was arrested, when Angela James spilled the beans,
that was the nail in the coffin.
Had she kept her mouth shut,
I really don't think they would've really had a case against any of us.
But it only took one leak-- one weak chain
in the link and it all crumbled.
[sobbing]
[Angela gasps]
♪ tense music playing ♪
- So Angie was scared after she cooperated with the police and told them
that she feels that she could be in danger.
And the reason why she felt that is 'cause she knows the type of person I am.
If somebody double crosses me,
I'll get them back one way or the other.
She said to the police,
"I saw Dan crawl into a mirror in the middle of the night
"and come out with all this money
and all this electronic stuff."
So the police smashed all my mirrors and all my drywalls
and found the safe room hidden behind a mirror.
- But what we found was that he actually had two hidden rooms.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: The entry to it was concealed behind a mirrored wall.
Uh, you know, there was a pressure switch to-to get in there,
and it was full of evidence.
OFFICER MCCORMICK: He kept records of everything he had done
and what he bought.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: He had literally thousands of physical keys.
MITCH MCCORMICK: Video and memory sticks and phones, and--
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: There was cash and lots of it.
He had the security guard uniforms.
OFFICER MCCORMICK: All his ID, all his phony ID.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: Files on all the different aliases.
- We had cops driving a U-Haul van back
from Vancouver to Winnipeg loaded with exhibits, right?
- But more importantly, what the gem were was all his video.
He videotaped everything.
- 'Cause he-- [laughs]
He recorded everything to his own detriment.
That's his downfall.
He kept everything.
- I picked the strongest charges,
the most undermining in terms of his criminal organizations,
uh, the ones that carried the greatest sanctions.
- He was going to be convicted,
and he was gonna be convicted of a number of significant charges.
- The maximum sentence on, on some of those charges--
- The phrase the judge used
is, uh, the total, uh, number of years he could face.
- Life imprisonment.
- One hundred and sixty eight years.
[laughs]
[prisoners yelling indistinctly]
OFFICER MCCORMICK: The first time I talked to Gerald,
it was in a, uh, interview office setting.
And you're thinking, "Well, this guy's gonna have the weight of the world.
"He's, you know, he's gonna go to jail a long time.
The police have--"
No, it was just kind of like,
kinda matter of fact and-and feeling good about everything,
kinda jovial almost.
- We had amassed an incredible amount of evidence against him
that came from various jurisdictions.
We had individuals who were prepared to testify against him.
So we had a very, very strong case against Mr. Blanchard,
and he knew it.
[inaudible dialogue]
GUNN: Look, we've got troubles here,
so, you know, what is it that we have
that the prosecution might be interested in?
And at that point he said, "Well, you know,
what about full restitution and, uh, a diamond that was stolen?"
Well, you know, I-- he hadn't told me about that yet. [laughs]
- So we ended up going to, uh, his grandma's house
where he said he had the, uh, Sisi Star hidden.
♪ downbeat funk music playing ♪
GUNN: I made sure that he understood
that if it wasn't there,
we were gonna have a lot of trouble securing cooperation
from that point forward.
- Well, I didn't have very much money, if any,
but I would've bet that he didn't have it.
You've gotta think that this guy is notoriously an escape artist.
So, like, he was handcuffed.
There was one guy sittin' beside him
and-and, you know, two in the front
and he wasn't gettin' away.
[indistinct chatter]
BLANCHARD: Hello, Grandma.
- There's something behind.
BLANCHARD: This is my Grandma from--
OFFICER MCCORMICK: We knocked on Grandma's door and we go in there.
But Gerald immediately goes to the far end of the crawl space
and he starts pulling out the Styrofoam.
There was a cutout where something was.
Larry pulled that out and there was that Sisi Star.
♪
- There was certainly a media release that we had recovered this item,
and that sparked interest all over the world.
♪ Strauss II's Blue Danube Waltz resumes playing ♪
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: There was a theft of a royal crown jewel,
and it was recovered in Winnipeg and we had it, right?
So it absolutely was, it was notorious.
♪
[inaudible dialogue]
♪
BLANCHARD: Larry and Mitch were excited
because they never had anything like this in their life.
So they wanted to let the media know that,
"Hey, here are these two cops from Winnipeg
"that caught this international jewel thief,
man of mystery, criminal genius," et cetera, et cetera.
And that's why there was so much worldwide attention regarding my case.
- Look, normally when you do this job,
you don't want the press.
But if you imagine yourself as this romantic figure
that I-I think he did,
that sense of-of being known
was very, uh, intoxicating for him.
♪
Now, he had this audience that was
aware of some of his capacity,
and, uh, he-he could not help himself,
but had to talk about everything.
Things that the police didn't know anything about,
he was telling them about.
OFFICER MCCORMICK: He told us all how he did it,
the planning, what he used, why he did things.
- We still didn't know about the covert cameras
or listening devices.
He explained where they were.
- You know, you talk to a guy and he admits to it,
that-that's one thing.
But when he goes into the finite details
of all the preparation and that he did,
that's something you don't see.
[inaudible dialogue]
GUNN: It's-it's all about that ego,
that desire to be known as, uh, the best and most interesting.
And, uh, that he was a, a success,
and he wanted to be a success that was recognized by the world.
- In the end I think I won
because it was my public persona
and my image that they created that got me where I am today.
So when I was in prison, I was a superstar.
[chuckles]
♪
REPORTER: He's been described as a criminal mastermind,
an international jewel thief.
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: There was this persona of Gerald Blanchard
being a mastermind thief.
And I think it really captured
the-the, the imagination is because it was real.
It was real.
♪
LEINBURD: I think also his ego is enormous.
And I think satisfaction was given to that ego
and fueled that ego.
He knew that he was notorious.
And it's my understanding
that he tried to author a book about this.
He's more than happy to contribute his name to, uh, films.
- Well, when Warner Brothers did the option agreement,
Zac Efron, was supposed to play me.
But when that movie got shelved, I was okay with it.
- Documentaries.
I mean, I think you can see that yourself.
He-he is very good at showing off what he did and who he is.
♪ epic music plays ♪
You can rob five or six banks and never become famous,
but do what Gerald Blanchard did, and you're a star.
You'll be remembered, you'll be documented,
you'll be filmed, you'll be in every newspaper in the world as he was.
So, I mean, he got exactly what he wanted.
Notoriety, fame, and money.
♪ orchestral music playing ♪
♪
♪ gentle piano music playing ♪
♪
OFFICER MCCORMICK: You are curious as to where he's gone from here.
I don't think he has the ability to stop.
If it's, if it's not, uh, actively doing it,
he's tied into some organized crime or something. You know?
It-it's not all legit. Can't be.
He just, he doesn't know anything else.
- He's never personally taken anything from anybody
that he knows personally or family members.
It's always been more like corporate America.
And, yes, I'm gonna say banks because his attitude,
and quite honestly, my attitude,
has always been the banks are legal criminals
because they can do anything they wanna do,
and they take money from people all the time.
♪
OFFICER LEVASSEUR: I mean, I don't have any proof
that he, that he is doing anything criminal,
but I'd be very surprised
if he wasn't, if he wasn't.
I think that challenge,
that, that, uh, need to conquer,
uh, is probably still there.
- Well, my drive to fight is similar to Dan stealing.
I'm a survivor.
And I'm very proud to say that's my boy.
♪
LEINBURD: In my experience, it's my belief
that reform has no place in Gerald Blanchard's life.
I don't think he's reformed.
Um, I don't think he ever will reform.
I think he is the kind of man who revels in this type of behavior.
And I don't think, frankly,
he could live without this kind of behavior.
♪
BLANCHARD: And when all the cards came falling down,
it was a sense of relief,
because I knew I would go do my jail time,
and then I would be free someday to start over.
♪
[chuckles]
- ♪ Shining star for you to see ♪
♪ What your life can truly be ♪
♪ Dream Your Little Dream by The Braun Brothers featuring Lady Blackbird playing ♪
- ♪ Look into your future ♪
♪ You will see your past ♪
♪ Look into ♪
♪ The crystal ball ♪
♪ The light is dimming fast ♪
♪ Dream your little dream ♪
♪ Dream of starting over ♪
♪ Dream your little dream ♪
♪ Dream, dream ♪
♪ Dream ♪
♪ Look into ♪
♪ My hazel eyes ♪
♪ Dream with me if you dare ♪
♪ Hear the truth ♪
♪ It never lies ♪
♪ Follow me, I'll take you there ♪
♪ Dream your little dream ♪
♪ Dream of starting over ♪
♪ Dream your little dream ♪
♪ Dream, dream ♪
♪ Dream ♪
♪ vocalizing ♪
♪ Dream, dream ♪
♪ Dream ♪
♪ Dream, dream ♪
♪ Dream ♪
♪ vocalizing ♪
♪ Dream, dream ♪
♪ Dream ♪
♪ vocalizing ♪
♪ Dream of starting over ♪
- For sure my friends and family were trying to steer me on the correct path,
but... and I say, "But,"
that doesn't pay the bills.