50s gold fraud scam involved fake gold, fake cops and a car window toss

Eugene  Deschambault

  Quebec gold scam 1951: 

1-Sell bars of fake stolen gold (it's brass but don't give the sucker time to find that.out.)

2-Drive your sucker to a buyer who promises to pay him double what he paid for that gold.

3-Get fake police officers to pull your car over en route to the resale

4-Toss gold out the car window into the woods before cops pulls you over, purportedly to prevent them from using it as evidence. 

  Presto, you've got the money and the fake gold is lost in the woods.

  In February 1952 Quebec police rounded up a gang of con artists who pulled the scam about nine times, earning an estimated $60,000.

    Eugene  Deschambault, 37, of St. John, 50 kms south of Montreal, was described as the ringleader in court. Others charged included former law student Jean Demers, 36,  Edgar Bergeron, 35,  Andre Dupuis, Vital Harpin, 43, Maurice Bouchard and Jean Langelier, 

  Adelard Bergeron, 33, a Val D'Or prospector, played a big role in the swindle and testified against his accomplices after being offered "court protection." Bergeron was also accused of swindling a Bleury Street cobbler of his $3,700 life savings.

Demers

     The gang defrauded Armand Payette, owner of the Tourist Inn in Iberville Quebec of $4,000, after making the exchange outside of a sugar shack near St. Gregoire. Payette then saw his precious gold tossed from the window after the car was flagged down on the road to Cowansville. 

 Gaston Perreault, Alderman for City of St. Michel, paid $8,000 cash at the corner of Sherbrooke and Bercy Streets and then drove to St. John with the package to sell to Demers for about $20,000. Scam artist Bergeron had contributed $1,800 towards the purchase, so he was made to look legit. The vendor Bouchard, in the same car, launched the fake gold out as the car sped down the road, jettisoning the incriminating bag full of purportedly stolen gold. 

 Gold mines in Timmins, Ontario and Val D'Or, Quebec were routinely robbed of gold during those times and it was apparently possible to sell that stolen gold for twice the Canadian amount abroad.