Police have called him one of the most sophisticated criminal masterminds Canada has ever seen and now one of Winnipeg’s most renowned high-tech criminals is a free man.
Gerald Daniel Blanchard, the leader of a team of international fraudsters and cyber-scammers, has been granted statutory release from prison.
His list of crimes reads like something out of a spy movie, but they are all real.
Before being arrested in 2007, after attracting the attention of the FBI and Interpol, Blanchard pulled off a number of online credit card and back account frauds, as well as stealing the Star of Empress Sisi – a diamond and pearl broach lifted from a palace in Austria. He hid the jewels at his grandmother’s house in Winnipeg.
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Blanchard has never revealed any of his accomplices, and was the only one in the so-called “Blanchard Criminal Organization” sentenced to 8-years in prison on theft and fraud charges. He was granted day parole last October.
Despite his legal parole, technological hand-cuffs will stay in place, Gerald Blanchard’s release comes with a number of conditions.
He’s only allowed one cell phone with limited capabilities and he’s not allowed any device that gives him unsupervised access to the internet, so that means no laptop, no smart phone, no tablet or even newer video game systems.
Blanchard is not allowed to associate with anyone from his old crew, or anyone “else” suspected of criminal activity.
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