Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, June 1997 #11

[Deleted member 249471]

Has anyone worked out how the JO scam was meant to work? He must have expected JO to be away from her home for perhaps a few days longer than she was but surely he couldn't have arranged the sale of her property in just a few days or even a week. Upon her return she immediately put a caveat on the property. So, if it wasn't the property, what did he hope to gain? A few pieces of jewellery? A few documents?

I posted this mid February:

RB's plan for JO – how was it supposed to end?
IMO, Speculation only:

He told her he was in hospital in France, recuperating.
But actually returned to Amsterdam, picked up luggage, and snuck back into Aus.
He showed up at her house with keys, title deed, and POA.
He didn't need to 'dig up' tube as he never buried it, just pretend to. He always had the items on him.

JO wasn't supposed to be home, but completely unaware in UK.
So, he was going to empty her house out, sell items and maybe keep some of it.
What was he going to do with the house?
We've talked about this before but some may've missed it...

There's a thing called real estate fraud or home title theft.
Essentially, they sell homes that do not belong to them, and keep the profit.

RB was intending to do this using an alias unconnected to JO, and police would never find proof of the link.
JO could eventually report it and fight it, but RB also legally had her title deeds and POA.
It would take a very long time for JO to prove fraud, that her house was her own, and get her money back.
There would be no reason to kill JO. Most scammers do this without murder.

3 Australian examples:
Fraud arrest, Moreton Bay (he was arrested for a boating incident, lol)
How criminals steal and sell your home from under your nose
Woman wins damages after scammers sold house from under her

How they do it:
A criminal scours publicly available property records to find a home that has accrued equity. They track down ownership of a home that’s either empty, a second residence or occupied by an elderly resident.

The thief creates a new identity for themselves. Then they forge the homeowner’s signature onto a fraudulent bill of sale, and transfer legal ownership of the house to their fake identity. This is a new type of identity theft that also involves more serious forgery, real estate and mortgage crimes. Source.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

I've been trying to unravel this too! Starting by figuring out how much cash she had vs what was taken:

• sold house for $165k (Colonial Ashmore)
• $20k available through Barclay's UK / Commonwealth
• whatever she had in savings from teaching for 30 years
• $80k lump sum withdrawn (Colonial Ashmore)
• $5k withdrawn daily for 3.5 weeks = $85k to $120k (Commonwealth Byron and Burleigh Heads)

This article says about au$300,000 was siphoned from Marion's bank account. That's a major jackpot for a scammer. Not sure what their source is, but it's $100k more than I thought.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

From Peralta: "Why does he make victims store luggage at the airport? He can't get caught with cash, IDs, women's jewellery, stolen goods in HIS bag amongst HIS clothing, as that is akin to being caught red handed. It's evidence. So he keeps all the stolen goods in a separate bag with women's clothing. If questioned, his excuse is, "Obviously this isn't my bag, it belongs to a woman! I mistook it for my own, sorry!" They can't prove anything. They can't arrest him for anything. I suspect this is how he transports money, coins and stolen goods to Australia.IMO"

From BonnieB: "The whole bag 'thing' never made much sense to me at all. If one of the bags contained something illegal, it wouldn't take a Sherlock Holmes to trace it back to him via JO so it can't be for that. There IS a reason, I just can't figure it out yet!"

@BonnieB, I may have this really wrong, but I assume:

• a conman would know not to leave any real identifiers on the bag with cash and stolen goods
• he might even plant a fake name, phone and address on it
• even if it did have his victim's name and contact in it, who would customs call, as their victim is in a foreign country with no fixed address?
• in the event customs somehow get hold of the victim's family, their families know nothing about RB as he made sure to target isolated women and made them conceal his identity and not talk to anyone about him
• RB sometimes travels on separate flights to his victim so there is little evidence of him having a travel companion
• people pick up the wrong luggage at the carousel all the time and don't get arrested or a Spanish inquisition, and there would be no reason RB would be flagged at customs as he uses 'clean' IDs to travel

I don't know... airports around the world have rooms full of legitimate lost luggage that are never reunited with their owners, so to me it seems that even Sherlock Holmes would NOT be able to trace the luggage to his victims and then link it to him. IMO.

I'm pretty hopeless with this stuff so can you shed some light on why and how you think the bags can be traced to his victims and then linked to RB? And what is your theory about why he makes them store luggage and then only he returns to that place?

 

[Satchie]

Has anyone worked out how the JO scam was meant to work? He must have expected JO to be away from her home for perhaps a few days longer than she was but surely he couldn't have arranged the sale of her property in just a few days or even a week. Upon her return she immediately put a caveat on the property. So, if it wasn't the property, what did he hope to gain? A few pieces of jewellery? A few documents?

IMO, RB seems to have been opportunistic. There were a few strategies it seems he tried on the two victims that we know about: sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't take. It seems if one strategy wasn't working he'd drop it and try something else.

IMO, I don't think he had a master plan that would either succeed or fail, I think he wanted to get power over a woman, to get as much of her assets as he could, but he'd play it by ear because every woman is different in how he could exploit her.

This is just off the top of my head, but I might relisten to podcast 9 to make notes of every strategy:

- get access to her house when she wasn't there and steal some things, probably snoop, as well.
- propose a business partnership and get her to 'invest'
- get her to sell her house, to more easily have access to that money
- get access to her identity documents (possibly to use right away, or sell, or just to have for future use when they might come in handy)
- take compromising photos and blackmail her
- isolate her from friends and family (perhaps this was the real purpose of the overseas trips)

He might have wanted JO's title deed and power of attorney to get a loan from a bank...

IMO, he wasn't super focussed on a single agenda. For example, when he was trying to isolate JO in the UK, why send her to stay with her cousin, who was, of course, looking out for JO's interests. Did he perhaps have a scheme to see if he could fleece the cousin, too?

I hope the inquest brings forward many other people who were cheated by this guy.

 

[BonnieB]

I posted this mid February:

RB's plan for JO – how was it supposed to end?
IMO, Speculation only:

He told her he was in hospital in France, recuperating.
But actually returned to Amsterdam, picked up luggage, and snuck back into Aus.
He showed up at her house with keys, title deed, and POA.
He didn't need to 'dig up' tube as he never buried it, just pretend to. He always had the items on him.

JO wasn't supposed to be home, but completely unaware in UK.
So, he was going to empty her house out, sell items and maybe keep some of it.
What was he going to do with the house?
We've talked about this before but some may've missed it...

There's a thing called real estate fraud or home title theft.
Essentially, they sell homes that do not belong to them, and keep the profit.

RB was intending to do this using an alias unconnected to JO, and police would never find proof of the link.
JO could eventually report it and fight it, but RB also legally had her title deeds and POA.
It would take a very long time for JO to prove fraud, that her house was her own, and get her money back.
There would be no reason to kill JO. Most scammers do this without murder.

3 Australian examples:
Fraud arrest, Moreton Bay (he was arrested for a boating incident, lol)
How criminals steal and sell your home from under your nose
Woman wins damages after scammers sold house from under her

How they do it:
A criminal scours publicly available property records to find a home that has accrued equity. They track down ownership of a home that’s either empty, a second residence or occupied by an elderly resident.

The thief creates a new identity for themselves. Then they forge the homeowner’s signature onto a fraudulent bill of sale, and transfer legal ownership of the house to their fake identity. This is a new type of identity theft that also involves more serious forgery, real estate and mortgage crimes. Source.

Great summary of how these low-life's operate!
I still don't see how Wonka planned to get away with it. Most, if not all, of these scams involve properties where the owner lives overseas or interstate and the properties are either vacant or in the hands of agents. Sure, he could empty JO's home and perhaps make a few thousand on the sale of second hand furniture. Even then, he only had a small window of time before JO borrowed her fare and returned home - a week at most. Upon her return, JO, realizing she had been scammed, put an immediate caveat on the property thus preventing any conveyance, legal or otherwise. To this day, he probably still has her POA and deeds stashed somewhere but they're useless. Edit: For that purpose anyway.

 

[gymtonic]

I posted this mid February:

RB's plan for JO – how was it supposed to end?
IMO, Speculation only:

He told her he was in hospital in France, recuperating.
But actually returned to Amsterdam, picked up luggage, and snuck back into Aus.
He showed up at her house with keys, title deed, and POA.
He didn't need to 'dig up' tube as he never buried it, just pretend to. He always had the items on him.

JO wasn't supposed to be home, but completely unaware in UK.
So, he was going to empty her house out, sell items and maybe keep some of it.
What was he going to do with the house?
We've talked about this before but some may've missed it...

There's a thing called real estate fraud or home title theft.
Essentially, they sell homes that do not belong to them, and keep the profit.

RB was intending to do this using an alias unconnected to JO, and police would never find proof of the link.
JO could eventually report it and fight it, but RB also legally had her title deeds and POA.
It would take a very long time for JO to prove fraud, that her house was her own, and get her money back.
There would be no reason to kill JO. Most scammers do this without murder.

3 Australian examples:
Fraud arrest, Moreton Bay (he was arrested for a boating incident, lol)
How criminals steal and sell your home from under your nose
Woman wins damages after scammers sold house from under her

How they do it:
A criminal scours publicly available property records to find a home that has accrued equity. They track down ownership of a home that’s either empty, a second residence or occupied by an elderly resident.

The thief creates a new identity for themselves. Then they forge the homeowner’s signature onto a fraudulent bill of sale, and transfer legal ownership of the house to their fake identity. This is a new type of identity theft that also involves more serious forgery, real estate and mortgage crimes. Source.

Exactly! Good to have you, and your well thought through hypotheses, back @Peralta !!

 

[Deleted member 249471]

Great summary of how these low-life's operate!
I still don't see how Wonka planned to get away with it. Most, if not all, of these scams involve properties where the owner lives overseas or interstate and the properties are either vacant or in the hands of agents. Sure, he could empty JO's home and perhaps make a few thousand on the sale of second hand furniture. Even then, he only had a small window of time before JO borrowed her fare and returned home - a week at most. Upon her return, JO, realizing she had been scammed, put an immediate caveat on the property thus preventing any conveyance, legal or otherwise. To this day, he probably still has her POA and deeds stashed somewhere but they're useless.

You should research/google more on this. Some people actually LIVE in the house when it's been sold from under them. It happens a lot, all over the world. The culprits are rarely found and prosecuted, so no, they don't get caught and they DO get a way with it an uncomfortable amount of times.

Also, no one imagined JO would return that quickly! It wasn't even her idea! She was going to stay abroad until RB recuperated and returned to her. It was only because he cousin forced her. And once she returned she STILL DID NOT understand she was was being conned. The fact she returned so quickly was a complete and utter miraculous fluke.

 

[Jay_Tec]

So, if we agree that this initial plan makes the most sense, what happened when his carefully stacked cards fell asunder?

Did he hire another accomplice to return on the FNMR passport? For what reason?

Did the accomplice already in Australia leave on an alias passport and return using the FNMR passport? Again, why? Too complicated IMO

Or did Marion return to sort out the bank account using her own passport? This is the most logical explanation IMO. It also explains why Marion said she would be out of communication with SL for a while.

That's my suspicion. The female accomplice shadowed Marion to the UK ready to quite literally become her once she met her demise and ready to return to Aus on the FNMR passport.

 

[gymtonic]

Great summary of how these low-life's operate!
I still don't see how Wonka planned to get away with it. Most, if not all, of these scams involve properties where the owner lives overseas or interstate and the properties are either vacant or in the hands of agents. Sure, he could empty JO's home and perhaps make a few thousand on the sale of second hand furniture. Even then, he only had a small window of time before JO borrowed her fare and returned home - a week at most. Upon her return, JO, realizing she had been scammed, put an immediate caveat on the property thus preventing any conveyance, legal or otherwise. To this day, he probably still has her POA and deeds stashed somewhere but they're useless.

Unless he also intended to return again to reconnect with JO and keep her occupied O/S for a while longer? Just speculating…

 

[BonnieB]

From Peralta: "Why does he make victims store luggage at the airport? He can't get caught with cash, IDs, women's jewellery, stolen goods in HIS bag amongst HIS clothing, as that is akin to being caught red handed. It's evidence. So he keeps all the stolen goods in a separate bag with women's clothing. If questioned, his excuse is, "Obviously this isn't my bag, it belongs to a woman! I mistook it for my own, sorry!" They can't prove anything. They can't arrest him for anything. I suspect this is how he transports money, coins and stolen goods to Australia.IMO"

From BonnieB: "The whole bag 'thing' never made much sense to me at all. If one of the bags contained something illegal, it wouldn't take a Sherlock Holmes to trace it back to him via JO so it can't be for that. There IS a reason, I just can't figure it out yet!"

@BonnieB, I may have this really wrong, but I assume:

• a conman would know not to leave any real identifiers on the bag with cash and stolen goods
• he might even plant a fake name, phone and address on it
• even if it did have his victim's name and contact in it, who would customs call, as their victim is in a foreign country with no fixed address?
• in the event customs somehow get hold of the victim's family, their families know nothing about RB as he made sure to target isolated women and made them conceal his identity and not talk to anyone about him
• RB sometimes travels on separate flights to his victim so there is little evidence of him having a travel companion
• people pick up the wrong luggage at the carousel all the time and don't get arrested or a Spanish inquisition, and there would be no reason RB would be flagged at customs as he uses 'clean' IDs to travel

I don't know... airports around the world have rooms full of legitimate lost luggage that are never reunited with their owners, so to me it seems that even Sherlock Holmes would NOT be able to trace the luggage to his victims and then link it to him. IMO.

I'm pretty hopeless with this stuff so can you shed some light on why and how you think the bags can be traced to his victims and then linked to RB? And what is your theory about why he makes them store luggage and then only he returns to that place?

Good points! So, who checks the luggage in? Wouldn't he be linked to the check-in?

 

[Jay_Tec]

RB abandoned JO with no cash, sent her to a relatives home in UK to borrow her fare home. Now, I expect he thought that would give him a few days leeway, but not more than a week. There is no evidence that JO owned valuable antique furniture or artworks. Property conveyance in Australia is not something achieved in a few days unless he had another "naive & cashed up" victim lined up. Even then, I can't see someone handing over thousands of dollars without legal checks on the ownership of the property. It just doesn't make sense to me.

hmmm it's an interesting one. I need to refresh on this but is there any possibility that JO was not intended to even make it to the relatives ?

 

[Littleguy7]

That's my suspicion. The female accomplice shadowed Marion to the UK ready to quite literally become her once she met her demise and ready to return to Aus on the FNMR passport.

I'm wondering whether acquiring the passport might have been his goal. I recall travelling in the 1990s and passport theft in the UK was one of the risks I was warned about.
Perhaps he was involved in acquiring and selling passports, and it was the purchaser that travelled back on the FNMR passport. MOO.

 

[gymtonic]

Good point and it must have been something solid for him not to be able to come up with a story, fanciful or not.

Is there still a box current ? I thought they spoke of one current and the previous ones in 97 ?
Just curious if so they may have a used a warrant and found some papers or something else that was a definite link he could nt deny

I have discovered how useful it has been to do a “spreadsheet” timeline, because when you enter the dates of opening and closing the 3 safe custody/ security box mentioned at inquest they seem to put Parentheses quite neatly around the suspected MB, GGB and JO alleged scams.

 

[gymtonic]

B U T . . . if Marion did not return to AUS, why did Wonka need to make it look like she did? Wouldn't it have been safer to abandon her or have her be seen as vanished in UK than AUS?

Sleight of hand? Look over here…no look over here. RB is still using this con technique in his testimony!

 

[BonnieB]

You should research/google more on this. Some people actually LIVE in the house when it's been sold from under them. It happens a lot, all over the world. The culprits are rarely found and prosecuted, so no, they don't get caught and they DO get a way with it an uncomfortable amount of times.

Also, no one imagined JO would return that quickly! It wasn't even her idea! She was going to stay abroad until RB recuperated and returned to her. It was only because he cousin forced her. And once she returned she STILL DID NOT understand she was was being conned. The fact she returned so quickly was a complete and utter miraculous fluke.

You're right, I now recall that it was her cousin who smelled a rat and sent her home ASAP. I guess it's just hard for a normal, law abiding person to get your head around the risks someone like Wonka is prepared to take to satisfy his greed. His total lack of conscience, empathy or feelings of guilt is hard to fathom.

 

[gymtonic]

This article says about au$300,000 was siphoned from Marion's bank account. That's a major jackpot for a scammer. Not sure what their source is, but it's $100k more than I thought.

That does seem like an error given the sources provided at inquest I.e. contemporaneous diary note by PM (MisPer Unit) indicates $95,000 (which given $5000 daily, weekdays only adds up to 19 days and thus just under 4 weeks activity) and the final $80,000. I only make this $175,000

 

[gymtonic]

It's clear that Wonka needed Marion to have his exact initials. FNMR. Mrs FNM Ramakel (like the older days terminology 'Mrs Fred Smith').
Wonka is a con artist, he habitually perpetrates financial fraud, plays with fake identities, and is a romance scammer. Fact.
Therefore, Marion did not elect to change her name to the exact same initials. She was suggested to, coerced to, brainwashed to.
Marion did not pre-emptively do this before marriage for her own reasons. She did it because she was told to.

So, why would a con artist and romance scammer who steals people's identities manipulate a woman to change her name to his exact initials and name?
Mrs FNM Ramakel ? Clearly, the whole point being that the initials are somewhat redundant in their long versions but identical...
She sees this as 'oh so super romantic'. Perhaps he even started calling her 'my little Florabella' as a love name in advance preparation.
For Wonka, it is important to him that some of her documents state 'FNM Ramakel' or 'Mrs FNM Ramakel'. This is no accident. It is for fraud.

Without even getting married, suddenly everything of Marion's is gone - her job, her family connection, her home, her possessions, her car, her identity, AND she's now located far out of her own country - literally the other side of the world!

Marion's flesh and blood living body and soul is the now the only thing standing between the predator and the end goal. It is no accident all of the above happened, it was rigorously planned to predate all Marion's attributes, paperwork, finances, possessions.

So, in the UK Marion no longer exists except in flesh and blood, nobody knows her, but an FNM Ramakel has a passport and documentation. Literally nobody, not one person on the planet knows Mrs FNM Ramakel so any female impersonator can play her. No accident.

I believe that Marion leaving her car with Sally to sell was in fact the biggest fly in the ointment. Everything else went super smoothly and that is why nobody has detected this horror crime for so long. I hope the perpetrators live long enough to be held to account and there is some semblance of justice.

Just clarification though…wasn’t his alias’ initials FNR and not FNMR?

 

[Jay_Tec]

Just clarification though…wasn’t his alias’ initials FNR and not FNMR?

Yep you're right, I was mistaken, she kept the 'Marion' creating FNMR and not FNR - no doubt against his wishes. In fact could have been quite the problem having Marion left in there as it keeps a connection to the real / original identity.

 

[gymtonic]

Good points! So, who checks the luggage in? Wouldn't he be linked to the check-in?

He has many aliases that we are struggling to unravel even now! Parts of this case keep reminding me of the Isdal Woman (involving many aliases and left luggage only linked through pure fluke of a partial fingerprint) and Sommerton Man cases.

 

[gymtonic]

I'm wondering whether acquiring the passport might have been his goal. I recall travelling in the 1990s and passport theft in the UK was one of the risks I was warned about.
Perhaps he was involved in acquiring and selling passports, and it was the purchaser that travelled back on the FNMR passport. MOO.

I agree…as per part of an earlier post on my reasoning for MB not returning …

RB Previous pattern of strange inter-country movements using different aliases and short term “wives”: The earlier complexity of WW and IK still intrigues me as to whether this was part of a passport/ residency/ citizenship for sale scam or even money laundering/ drug trafficking scam. If it was then providing the FNMR passport to someone else who wants to enter Oz illegally would be possible with his criminal contacts and would serve 2 purposes – gets the passport back into Oz to be used by RB fraudulently (not a stretch given RB’s previous) and gets someone else in for a service fee. RB can then tell MB that he was attacked and her passport was stolen (a la JO MO).