WANTED - DEAD OR ALIVE

(NK) Well, we’re back to just the two of us. Captain Demando AKA Leo Panelli AKA Captain Crook is a long story. We’ve deliberated on whether to tell the tale and how to do it and in the end decided to just go for it. It’s not really your average travel blog stuff. More like crime fiction. Settle in, this is a long one and it’s a bumpy ride.

You only have to look at this picture of Trisha to see that Mexico is scam central. The rest of the street was empty but they chose this strategic parking instead.

Nice one lads!

As per our previous blogs, the idea of crewing on a yacht seemed a bit unbelievable to us but we’d spoken to people who’d done it, so we thought, why not. After leaving Cancun and coming to Cozumel island to bring the boat in we were starting to have our suspicions about the man we were calling Captain Demando.

Most of his story checked out, he was a very intelligent/psychologically manipulative guy who knew almost everything about anything and he could play the guitar like the rock star he claimed he was.

On the flip side, he clearly had an alcohol problem, was taking prescription psych drugs and painkillers - for what he claimed were his kidney stones and mild depression - and had some clear personality malfunctions. He’s the sort of guy that is always shouting obscenities or using shock to try and get a laugh or some attention. As his personality began to grate so too his addictions began to surface as real problems.

Our doubts were growing but the carrot of a sailing trip was still dangling and we thought, hey, hopefully the rest of the crew will be decent people. We were also swayed into believing his condition was just short term and he would get better soon. Something he constantly promised us.

After a few days on Cozumel we moved into a swanky three-bed apartment with an ocean view and a diving board straight into the Caribbean sea. It was then that things started to go really wrong.

When we met Leo we were sold his elaborate life story and a bit of online research showed it checked out well enough. He had also told us that he had been robbed in Cancun (FK – even showing us the exact spot it happened) so had no ID, credit cards or anything. All he had was the emergency $2,000 from American Express when his card was stolen. “But not to worry guys, that will all be sorted in a matter of days” was his mantra.

We’d been with him for two weeks and the money was running out, we were now starting to pay for things in the interim which we knew was wrong but the same old, “don’t worry guys my accountant will send you a transfer over.”

I pulled Fi to one side. This guy is a bullshitter. A very good one, I give him that, but a bullshitter. He liked to show us YouTube videos of his favourite songs, as I became more certain of his intentions I showed him this video.

It went right over his head.

FK – Now people that know me will agree that I always like to see the best in people, but when the cold reality of what Neil was saying struck me, I knew it was true but didn’t want to believe it. We started to have secret meetings down by the ocean once Leo had passed out from all the Tafil and Tequila he had necked, to discuss the days bullshit and work out a plan of action.

NK - The money had run out and we were not paying anymore. He was trying to get us to party, to be more fun. He wanted to go out and get girls. I should add here that he was a stinky fat slob, yet one night he brought two young American girls home and apparently had a threesome with them, such was the power of his bullshit. Or was that bullshit. Too much bullshit, to keep track of.

Me and Fi had a bigger problem, we had foolishly started to pay for things he promised to pay us back for since his money had run out. We had foolishly given him a huge $600 for the port fees to get his license to bring the boat in. I said to Fi, be prepared to lose that money or be prepared to call him out and watch the shit go down. Fi sees the best in people, she believed this might all still be true. I must admit, a part of me still did, even though all my instincts said scam.

Up until that time he had been playing us with his bigshot lifestyle and knowledge, paying for stuff, telling us what great people we were and how we were helping him recover and get his life back on track after the divorce with his wife. Teaching us to play guitar, to sail, psychoanalyzing us with disturbing precision, but now the tide was turning.

Things had changed. He was stalling us, using his health as an excuse, using American banks, credit card companies and the consulate being slow as excuses, using Thanksgiving and the holiday season as an excuse for the rest of the crew not being here yet, using Mexican bureaucracy as an excuse. There were too many excuses, which when we challenged were met with outrage.

He then made a number of mistakes. He was constantly talking about his house that was closing for $1.8 mil in Oaxaca. Due to his divorce and for tax reasons he would need to reinvest it straight away into more property. He liked Cozumel and so started looking at land and property with the manager of the apartments we were staying at, Matias, an extremely handsome and friendly Argentinian man who lived on the island with his Italian wife and baby. We’re talking big properties, penthouses and ocean front land. Matias took time from his schedule to make arrangements and show Leo around the island.

(FK) -  Leo had us join him on this little farce, so that we could watch what a big shot property tycoon he was and teach us all about buying property. Urmmm Leo, you obviously weren’t listening when I told you what I did back at home. It was embarrassing, he was so doped up on drugs he was slurring his speech.

(NK) His second mistake was to mention he was looking for another crew-member, and ask us did we know anyone. After some talking we thought about Nicholas, our cousin back in Fairfax. We spoke to Uncle Paul and Auntie Pia who thought it might be a good idea.

Uncle Paul started to do some research and found something that showed up on Facebook through his Iphone but for some reason not when you looked at it on a computer. It was from June, a guy saying Leo is a scam artist, watch out! Turns out if you navigate from his fan-page onto his personal page which is slightly hidden you can find it.

He sent it to me, it could’ve been something or nothing, a minor dispute, but after everything that had happened it confirmed our suspicions.

His third mistake was the way in which he wanted to buy the car from us. He wanted to make the transfer and then get a bill of sale and the title before the money landed in our account. So far we had fallen for it but did he think we were that stupid? More alarm bells went off, no way. We had to get rid of this guy, we had to get our money back.

He started to see I was getting impatient to the point of aggressive and would not put a single peso more into this. He needed the apartment. He needed to show he had money. The next day he announced he was going to buy the apartment from Matias and sure enough Matias and his wife came over to sort out the details.

I cannot convey how much of a bell-end he was in this meeting. An offer was made, he said he wouldn’t be paying any more rent as he’d be using a US ESCROW to make a non refundable deposit immediately yada yada legal speak bullshit. He wanted to buy the house and he wanted to do it now. Matias and his wife went away and made the offer, which was accepted.

(FK) Leo thought he was home and dry. His opening gambit was “Guys, tell me I’m a genius.” Oh Leo, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings, you cocky twat. It all came crashing down on him.

Banged up abroad

(NK) Matias came back to say the offer was accepted and Leo could pay the deposit by transfer into his account. No way, said Leo, I want to do an Escrow. I listened to the conversation. Something was going on with Matias. He was being polite but I could tell by his attitude, he was saying, DO NOT TRY TO SCAM ME!

Like Hitler, Leo was now fighting a war on two fronts. We wouldn’t pay for another week’s rent and Matias wouldn’t let us stay on this promise of an Escrow Leo was talking about.

The next morning came his judgement.

We were moving out and Matias had spent all night doing his homework on Leo and us. He started off by speaking to us first and asking a few questions that he knew the answers to, a test of our honesty, to see if we were part of the scam. He could see we were genuine and he quickly ascertained the situation. While we had been out Matias had checked Leo’s room for weapons. The place was a pig sty and there was a cigarette burn in his bed. I’m a rock star! Would’ve been Leo’s usual response.

FK - As Matias walked out of the apartment, he said he’d be back in an hour. I went to shake his hand and apologise for the absolute debacle. I must have had a look of sheer desperation in my eyes as he said “I need to speak to you outside now." He said what we already knew – This guy is a scam artist. Any hope of this guy being a good honest man evaporated from me and I felt a sense of desperation creeping into me. I told Matias that we didn’t know how to get our money back and get rid of him. He said he would be back in an hour, get the money from him any way you can and I will help you run this rat back into the jungle where he belongs.

NK - Fiona urgently grabbed me and told me what had happened – halleluiah   but how were we going to get out of this. I knew I had to get the money back now. I went back inside and asked Leo if he still had it as we ‘needed it for the port fees’ and I wanted to make sure we didn’t need to draw out any more. He said yes, but I insisted he counted it again as he was probably drunk or doped up on painkillers last time. He pulled the money out and started to count.

“Here, I’ll do it”, I said and snatched it out of his hand. He watched me count it and then put it in my pocket. That’s when he went ballistic. He was in my face saying I was disrespecting him and didn’t trust him. He’d made a big deal about trusting each other, obviously. I didn’t care. Leo acted a tough guy all the time. He’d made the mistake of trying to play fight me when he was drunk. He didn’t know I was trained to fight and fought for fun until late in our relationship. He knew that physically there was no way for him and started to whine he’d left his hat in the car, could he have the keys?

The rat was getting ready to jump ship. Of course, he didn’t get the car keys, he got told to sit down and wait.

I spoke with Matias. We needed to end this and he agreed to help but I never expected what came next. Earlier in the week we’d been looking for paddle boards and found a hostel at the edge of some jungle. That’s where we told Leo we were going. We pulled up just beyond it in a quiet place.

Unbeknown to Leo, Matias had followed us. He got out of the car and told Leo he had a small problem with the cigarette burns. Then he said it: ‘But you don’t care because you are a scam artist trying to scam these good people.’

I chimed in, ‘So what the f*8k is really going on Leo.’ He tried to squirm and all hell broke loose. Matias lost his shit! He was screaming, veins were bulging, the latin fire was alive. I should mention that we had clicked with Matias a little over the previous week and really liked him. (FK – what Neil really means is he had a bit of man crush on Matias!)

Now though, he was someone else and he was talking about doing terrible things to Leo, the sort of things that are usually reserved for movies or African civil wars. I believed him. The phone rang, it was Matias’ wife and Matias was struggling to keep calm while talking to her, she wanted him to calm down but instead he came out with this cracker in his staccato latin accent.

“Yes I know I am angry but my parents, they get divorced when I was younger, I still have a lot of anger issues so when I get a chance like this, well, it is much cheaper than a psychologist.”

Then it was my turn to get angry, Leo was about to get chopped up and buried in the jungle. Yet STILL he lied, still he maintained his story. If we gave him the day he could prove everything he said. Was he completely deluded, mentally ill, did he believe his own lies so much? We left him outside and checked into the hostel. It was starting to look like a scene from a Tarantino film and we needed to calm down before it became one.

Matias left us and headed back onto the main road, but on the way out, as if by fate he saw a passing police car and knew the two officers. The Policia was always out of the question for us. They’d tried to extort us in the past and our Spanish was useless compared to Leo’s. Matias on the other hand was well connected. Off Leo was packed to the station and before we knew it we were all in a room with a judge and the American consulate telling our story.

Leo would spend the night in jail while immigration checked out his status as he had no ID. As we left Matias said, “For the first time I see you shine, you can be the people you are again.”

We bid Matias an emotional thank you and went back to the hostel. A curse had been lifted from us.

That's your last Margarita for some time!

What to do now?

We were shell-shocked by what had happened. Our own stupidity. Could it have gone very differently? How did it all go so wrong?

Let it go? Nope. We started our retribution immediately. We did what we needed to do and found people that wanted Leo’s blood. A list of people he’d conned over the past two years, some just emotionally. Some for thousands of dollars, some for property, boats, businesses, cars and one man for a horrible amount of money. The sort of money we’re not likely to see in our lifetime. Had he kept conning and losing it? What did he see in us? Where we a quick con, part of a bigger con? What became clear was this guy was a professional who’d left a path of destruction.

People were looking for him on an international level and they were over the moon that we had found him and told them his whereabouts.

We examined our weaknesses, the chinks in the armour that almost became our downfall. Why did we fall for that one? Why did we not question that harder? Why us etc? But in the end why us? Perhaps because we’d worked it out. Perhaps because he needed to be stopped. I don’t know. We were dealing with a master of deception. A man who lived to do this and who we came to learn was so mentally messed up, probably believed most of his lies himself. Trust us when we say he had smart answers for everything, kept us busy, manipulated us and managed to keep refueling his time with us.

It’s easy to look at this paraphrased account and question our sanity. The reason we deliberated on writing this? The last thing we need is a - be careful - or unnecessary worry. We can take our own lessons from this. We were targeted, reeled in and when he tried to pull us aboard, we ate the motherfucker.

We have gone through a series of emotions and I would no doubt like to smash him to pieces but we hope what we have done in the aftermath is enough to bring him to justice. The response from people he’s scammed has been rewarding. Gratitude, appreciation and one person saying he was in awe of what we have accomplished. Though, we can’t really give all the details of what we did in the aftermath – it was Fiona’s cunning that saved the day.

This comment being a favourite from the Facebook page

 We are looking for you Leo! You can run but not hide. Look like you fucked with The wrong person!

We’re under no illusions. We were stupid, we were in danger and we owe a lot to Matias for his help in catching him. Good people have been cheated but good people also did what needed too be done. Matias could have walked away from all of us that day but he wanted to help put things right.

So where is Leo Panelli now?

After spending the night in prison he was sent to Cancun. There are now various lawyers representing his various victims trying extradite him for his crimes and various warrants. He had done a great job of leaving just enough but not enough about himself on the internet. Deleting bad comments, closing and reopening email and social media accounts to shake people from his trail. Those accounts belong to someone else now. His time has run out.

Still laughing!

FK - That afternoon we went back to the dogs home where we’d been volunteering and took stock of what had happened. We’d lost out but we also had a new appreciation for each other and for the amazing journey we were on. For all his sham and lies he had taught us one great thing.

“Each morning when you wake together, know that the other could be gone the next day.”

That afternoon we went back to the Cozumel Humane Society dog shelter where we'd been volunteering and got some perspective back.

This is Pixar but I thought she looked more like a Julie

Little Chicle, rescued from the city pound after he was attacked

The day after we just got wrecked

So, we got right back on track and went wreck diving the next morning with the owner of the hostel, Adolfo, before driving Trisha into the sunset, Belize bound. Cozumel was a great little island with world class diving, hopefully one day we will return to the genuine friends we made there.