THEY WILL be watching Juan Carlos Guzman-Betancourt very closely at his jail in Vermont. On a previous occasion when the silver-tongued Colombian conman with a taste for the high life was locked up, he walked out of jail after persuading the authorities to let him go to the dentist alone.
But after illegally crossing the border from Canada, the man whom British police have likened to legendary US conman Frank Abagnale, played by Leonardo Di Caprio in the film Catch Me If You Can, faces the prospect of eight countries and Nevada asking for his extradition.
Guzman-Betancourt (33) is believed to have stolen $1 million (€683,000) worldwide by conning his way into hotel rooms and emptying safes, as well as more routine fraud.
The Colombian has at least 10 identities and has been pursued in Canada, Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Thailand and Venezuela.
He has been convicted of larceny in Virginia and New York and credit-card fraud in Florida. He has also been deported from the US three times.
In his earliest known con, he was found on the runway of Miami airport claiming to be a 13-year-old orphan who had clung to the undercarriage of a flight from Colombia. The story generated an outpouring of sympathy, and tens of thousands of dollars in donations to a support fund. After he fled with the cash it emerged he was 17 with two healthy parents.
Guzman-Betancourt was known in Britain as Gonzalo Zapater Vives. He was detained in 1998 following a series of burglaries but jumped bail. When he was finally picked up in London in 2004 after an off-duty policeman spotted him in a supermarket, the Colombian was tried and jailed for burglaries at the Dorchester and Mandarin Oriental hotels in London.
The detective who arrested him, Andy Swindells, described him as an accomplished liar who staked out high-class hotels, identified wealthy victims and waited for them to leave their rooms. He then persuaded hotel staff to let him in and, once there, would call security claiming to have forgotten the key or code to the safe. He walked out with money, jewels and passports.
He was sentenced to 3½ years but served only two months before being allowed out on his own for a dental appointment. He never returned.
Guzman-Betancourt was detained by US border guards earlier this month after a tip-off as he waited for a taxi at a petrol station.
He tried to persuade the officials he had wandered across the frontier accidentally after his car broke down. But the border guards took him into custody as a suspected illegal immigrant until his fingerprints revealed him as the conman. – (Guardian service)
Conor Lally adds: Guzman-Betancourt served part of a two-year sentence in the Republic for burglary at Dublin’s Merrion Hotel and using a stolen credit card to buy items at city-centre jewellers.
The offences, to which he pleaded guilty, related to entering a suite in the hotel and stealing a ruby ring, passport, wallet containing credit cards, $3,500 (€2,390) in cash and €250 in cash on June 16th, 2005. He also pleaded guilty to using a stolen credit card to buy a Rolex watch, gold chain and wedding ring.
He was freed in December 2006. By that time the High Court had ordered his extradition to France to serve a sentence for document forgery.