Maria Duval scam

Gamba sold the rights to the psychic services of "Maria Duval", entering into a contractual arrangement with a group of people who used the name to promote the sale of astrology charts,[1][2] possibly in the early 1990s.

[1][2] According to an investigation by CNN journalists Melanie Hicken and Ellis Blake, the scam was controlled for some time by two European companies, Astroforce and Infogest, both being owned by Raëlian Jean-Claude Reuille, who eventually sold his assets to undisclosed buyers.

[1][9] In August, 2018, they published "A Deal with the Devil: The Dark & Twisted True Story Of One Of The Biggest Cons In History", which narrates their search for the elusive Maria Duval/Carolina Gamba.

The DoJ also barred Hong Kong's Destiny Research Center and Montreal's Infogest Direct Marketing from sending letters to the United States (from Canada) and the criminal investigation targeting those two firms was still ongoing in 2018.

[1] A United States Postal Inspection Service investigation got underway in 2018[1] and two Canadian citizens, Maria Thanos and Philip Lett, pleaded guilty in June of that year to conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

[16] Investigative reporters from CNN, Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken exposed the complex inner workings of a case of psychic fraud that spanned several decades and bilked over $200,000,000 from the mostly elderly victims.

Grossman states "This is a twist we skeptics never saw coming: that those famous for their psychic claims could effectively sell their businesses to organized crime and become pawns of their new bosses".

[19] An article published on the Portuguese news website, Setenta e Quatro, claims that João Vale e Azevedo, a former President of soccer club S. L. Benfica, was responsible for expanding the scam to Portugal, where it operated between 1995 and 2012 and earned 3 million euros alone between July 1, 1998, and June 30, 1999.