In this episode of Canada Is Boring, Rhys and Jesse dive into the bizarre, lucrative world of psychic mail-order scams led by one of Canada’s most successful fraudsters, Patrice Runner.
Starting with his obsession with old-school magazine ads and get-rich-quick schemes, we follow Runner’s journey to partnering with celebrity psychic Maria Duval, licensing her name for North American “psychic predictions,” lucky talismans, and vibratory crystals. Over two decades, his company Infogest Direct Marketing raked in more than $175 million USD from mostly older, vulnerable believers across Canada and the US—selling false hope, fake artifacts, and rigged “personal” letters.
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