Florida Man Charged in Years-Long $4 Million Fake Psychic Scheme Targeting ‘Elderly’ and ‘Vulnerable’

A French Israeli national who previously lived in Aventura, Florida, is facing federal charges after hatching a fake psychic scheme to trick people out of their money via the mail.

The US Justice Department announced in a press release on Tuesday, November 3, that it had extradited Mael Chemla from Germany back to the United States, where he used to live in Aventura, Florida.

According to a recently unsealed indictment cited in the press release, Chemla, 61, allegedly conspired with other people to send letters to alleged victims throughout the United States telling them a psychic predicted they had an “imminent financial windfall the victim was entitled to receive,” per the press release.

The letters were reportedly personalized to each alleged victim. Each one was instructed to send payment through the mail in order to receive the windfall. Chemla allegedly opened US bank accounts in the names of the fake psychics and deposited the checks that their marks sent. The money was then wired to banks in Europe controlled by one of his coconspirators.

The Justice Department says that the scheme ran from September 2016 through November 2020, and Chemla and his co-conspirators netted more than $4 million from thousands of alleged victims who believed the fake psychic had found them money.

The press release notes many of the alleged victims were “elderly and otherwise vulnerable.”

Chemla was charged with conspiracy, mail fraud and wire fraud. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on all counts. Meanwhile, the case is still under investigation by the US Postal Service.

So far, Chemla has not made a public plea.