The Perfect 5 Star Hotel Con | Conmen Case Files | Real Crime

there's a way to make an entrance my destiny it was now a conspiracy of witches download veli today [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] con men the most devious of all criminals charming cool and calculating they betray trust and devastate lives yet remain a complete enigma we are about to explore the mysterious world of these master criminals giving an unprecedented insight into the workings of the complex minds of some of the world's most cunning con men and women we will reveal the detail and the intricacies of their elaborate crimes and uncover how they were dramatically brought to justice in this show a globetrotting colombian whose crimes it's estimated have made him more than a million pounds in the last decade and seen him named as one of the most gifted confidence tricksters in the world one bettencourt is quite possibly the quintessential command and to fully explore and understand the quintessential con man suave strategy experts such as forensic psychologist kerry danes will offer their own unique analysis so he strolls into the world's finest and grandest hotels completely empty-handed and then he strolls out with money credit cards jewelry and passports he's a con man escape artist possesses a dozen aliases and with the type of charm that can only be described as hypnotic a criminal so ice cool that even when sent to prison he was able to con his way out of the front door he was just two months into a three and a half year sentence and he walked out the door for a dentist's appointment and just kept on walking [Music] in the most exclusive five-star hotels around the world glamorous guests experienced the finest hospitality on offer but in this elite environment a con man developed a near-perfect five-star scam for over a decade juan carlos guzman-bettencourt preyed upon these exclusive locations his aim was to rob their wealthiest clients the handsome charming and suave con man's career and his perfectly honed hotel hustle has been closely followed by court correspondent sarah o'connor he always presents himself as a guest he might have a coffee he might change some money and make sure that staff recognize them he becomes a familiar face around the hotel well all hotels are quite small communities once the staff have seen you in a cafe or the reception desk a couple of times they tend to accept you as somebody who's actually staying there most con men actually want to go by unnoticed but in this case bettencourt actually made the most of making friendships if you like with hotel staff he was at least familiar to them he was around he made himself noticeable so that they would think that he was a hotel guest and essentially in being noticeable he became almost anonymous one man who knows how bettencourt operates better than most is the irish police officer or garda officer who tracked him after one of his most serious stunts in 2005. guarder sergeant brian mclin he will approach the reception desk or even the bar staff and say hi my guest can i use your pay phone can i use your cigarette machine can i use your internet but by saying i am a guest he is given the immediate impression to the the receptionist or that staff member oh yes this is a guest and when he meets them again they're more than convinced but that was simply stage one of the con man's strategy so while making himself familiar to staff he's also trying to find out as much as he can about guests like their names and their room numbers especially if they appear wealthy you know if you hang around the bar you will hear customers coming to the counter or even interacting with the waiter at their seats where room numbers and names of guests are exchanged one thing he does which is quite ingenious is that he stands in line in breakfast cues and listens while guests give their names and room numbers to the maitre d with the foundations painstakingly laid bettencourt would set about launching the third and riskiest phase of his con hello this is where the groundwork pays off because once he's armed with this information he goes to reception when a member of staff is there that's familiar to him that recognizes him maybe that member of staff has changed money for him and he goes and asks for a key card to a room assuming the name of a guest knowing the identity of the room guest knowing that the guest was actually out of the room you would simply say i've lost my room card or i've misplaced it is there any chance you can give me another one juan bettencourt combined his cleverly honed strategy with his hypnotic charm and the result was the helpful receptionist would hand the con man a key card to a room or suite that in reality he should never have been allowed access to he's extremely convincing with the hotel staff and he's acquired the information very quickly while he's loitering in the hotel to be able to approach the staff in a very confident manner such as the culture of the five-star hotel industry that the guest is always right and a guest looking like one bettencourt did is never going to be questioned top hotels are kind of like a specialized ecosystem for con men because if you know what you're doing if you can crack the hotel code then you can get away with all sorts of stuff what makes swanky hotels particularly vulnerable to con men is it's all about making the high rolling guest feel like he doesn't need to prove anything to you doesn't he prove his identity you know who he is uh he's an old trusted valued customer so it's all about like yes sir no problem sir whatever you say sir right away sir it's all about being very deferential and in that sense it's ideal territory for the con man because it's all about confidence and that is the con the con man stocking trade with the third phase of the con completed bettencourt would casually continue beginning the fourth stage of his high-class scam now armed with his key card he makes his way to the hotel where we make sure there's nobody else inside he uses the card [Music] once this man gains entry to the room he can take his time and go around the whole room and take various different items such as watches jewelry identity cards cash and once he has done all of that will he then call the security to the room to open this safe that's his final move the fifth and final stage of bettencourt's con would see the world's most illustrious hotels open up their guests safes for the hotel hustler and ultimately hand him their contents he doesn't ring hotel reception he brings hotel security and tells them that he can't get into a safe that he's lost his pin number simply by virtue of the fact that he's in the room that's then convincing enough for the security man to say well he's in the room he must be for real so i'll open up the safe so it's quite a clever con but again what he's doing is he's taking advantage of the social economy of the top hotel the room itself appears undamaged and there's no break-in reported the there's no sign of any foul play inside in the room and so they opened the safe for him they leave and he helps himself to whatever's in there be it jewels passports credit cards cash he takes it and walks right out by them [Music] bettencourt had devised a near-perfect five-star hotel con manipulating the impeccable service on offer to his own advantage a con so perfect that throughout juan bettencourt's criminal career he was never caught in the act it's a meticulous plan it's flawless it's plausible all the way through it's very common that guests will lose their key cards forget their combinations he looks the part he's wearing designer clothes a flashy watch he's charm personified he's been described as hypnotically charming so why would anyone question anything other than he was a guest in just over a decade the hotel hustler had made an estimated million pounds out of the world's most illustrious hotels but the international con man's career has spanned much more than a decade in 1993 age 17 bettencourt shocked and staggered the world with a death-defying con that catapulted him to global infamy [Music] over a decade the stylish suave and enigmatic con man juan carlos guzman-bettencourt made five star hotels his hunting ground and developed the ultimate strategy in order to effortlessly infiltrate their finest suites and raid the bountiful safes and each time he did so with the unwitting help of the five-star staff rich people and those who pander to every need make quite easy marks because if you look the part and you talk the talk and you walk the walk then they will often accept you unhesitatingly as one of their own and they'll accord you all sorts of privileges that wouldn't be accorded to normal people and you can get away with all sorts of stuff police estimate that bettencourt has gotten away with over one million pounds from the hotels he has expertly robbed but the five-star high life was a world away from the con man's humble beginnings if we're to believe the legend of bettencourt one of the stories is that he was born in the colombian town of royal danilo in 1976 that he lived in a mud hut that his mother was a cleaner and that his father was a farm laborer whether that's true or not is incredibly atmospheric this boy from such a background went on to dupe five-star hotels extremely effectively his mother admitted that he was treated badly and that his father had left when he was just a month old and she remarried and that he felt pushed out that he didn't fit in you often find that people who've grown up feeling unloved or have been abandoned grow up with quite a steely determination to succeed and not only succeed but succeed on their own and on their own terms now clearly bettencourt did succeed in some in some way he certainly came a long way from the mud hut in colombia but you have to think to yourself well if we put that much imagination that much energy and drive into some sort of lawful and legitimate lifestyle actually where would he be now the story goes that bettencourt left home in his mid-teens after a family argument legend dictates that after running away from home the con man ate from dustbins and lived in an abandoned aeroplane with other street children at kali airport in colombia and aeroplanes and airports would become even more significant in juan bettencourt's mythology 1993 when the con man was 17 years old he entered the public consciousness for the first time and what an entrance it was so the first defining moment for bettencourt was in the early hours of june the first 1993 and he really made an impact he was found wandering around miami airport in the u.s he appeared disheveled and the story was that he was a stowaway on a plane from colombia and he hadn't been in the cargo area of the plane his claim was that he was stowed away on the wheel hull of the plane no one knows if the shocking story of the teenage stowaway is true or the first con in bettencourt's international career this plane cruised at 35 000 feet which is 5 000 feet higher than mount everest and 40 degrees below freezing aero medical experts say that this story is really hard to believe it sounds impossible that a teenager would survive this kind of journey but staff at the airport have said some people saw him dropping from the wheel hole apparently he laid there for a few minutes unconscious before he started to come around and was shaking the risks that he seemingly took to leave colombia really do point to the fact that this was somebody who had to escape who really was determined to go make another life for himself by any means necessary bettencourt under the assumed name of guillermo rosales told the hungry press his fantastical story of escaping poverty and cheating death he claimed he was 13 years at the time which we know was a lie it was established that it was 17 years he also claimed that he was an orphan and that he climbed onto the wheel hub just before the plane took off and that he was there for the duration of the flight and he said that the image of his dead parents helped him through the ordeal from colombia to miami the story of the 13 year old stowaway was a media sensation guillermo rosales really 17 year old juan bettencourt was entrusted into the guardianship of a miami police officer and his wife but while staying with him the teenager stole jewelry tools and a bicycle he also disappeared with a support fund of 75000 american citizens sympathetically set up for the alleged orphan who had cheated death however before long the colombian officials set the story straight about the child who clung to the plain wheel from colombia to miami the consulate revealed that this person was not a 13 year old orphan that it was one bet in court that he was 17 and that his parents were alive and that he had criminal record in his native country bettencourt was deported from miami in 1994 and again in 1995 when he attempted to return but his initial stay in the land of opportunity had been in education and laid the foundations for his future career as a con man by the late 1990s juan bettencourt had perfected his hotel con he was never caught in the act when he executed his five-star scam and because he used over a dozen aliases when the police did catch up with him they never held on to him for long in london in 1998 after being arrested for his hotel con the police released a man they believed was called gonzalo zapter vives he was being questioned over a string of thefts from exclusive hotels around london he was charged and he never went on trial for this because he jumped bail after jumping bail he disappeared and nothing was heard of him for a year a year later in 1999 similarly a man called cesar ortego zaveras was also released from british custody he was arrested at heathrow airport because he had used a credit card which had been reported stolen from japan and he assumed the alias caesar ortigoza veras and he the his alias was believed and he was fined 400 pounds and again he walked free from court and banished it makes much more sense if the crimes committed in different jurisdictions are under different aliases because then it makes it much harder for the police to put the bigger picture together and it makes it much more likely that you'll get off scot-free but the aliases only worked so seamlessly because at that time the police technology was basic and so the con man was able to sidestep his true identity being exposed he was very fortunate because in the late 1990s the metropolitan police didn't have an automated fingerprint search system so when he was arrested for perhaps what was seen at the time as an isolated minor crime his fingerprints weren't taken and compared against outstanding crimes across the country as they would be now if that system had been in place the police would have known that they were dealing with the international con man juan carlos guzman-bettencourt and two years after his heathrow arrest bettencourt returned to the british capital in may 2001 he was back in london again and he really went to town infiltrating exclusive hotels in mayfair knightsbridge and park lane and from one of the hotels it's reported that he took around 40 000 pounds worth of jewels and cash and from another fifteen thousand pounds bettencourt must get a real thrill from walking into a hotel empty-handed but then leaving with sometimes tens of thousands of pounds maybe that makes him feel like he is somebody because after all he must be better he must be cleverer than the elite that he's stealing from in his eyes is not just a common thief the con man's carefully honed routine resulted in him leaving london with over fifty thousand pounds and he left the capital in style from one of the hotels he stole an amex card and hired a chauffeur driven bentley for 400 pounds to take him to the airport where he bought a ticket to paris and he also blew eight thousand pounds on jewelry and designer clothes bettencourt took to the skies with his ill-gotten gains and once again disappeared without consequence destined for paris and his pattern continued by 2003 bettencourt was in las vegas he had conned his way back into the usa undetected ready to raid the hotels that lined the strip in august 2003 in vegas he continues his hotel con and pulls off his most audacious con yet from two hotels on the main strip in las vegas to exclusive hotels he stole 200 000 pounds worth of cash and jewelry the confidence and self-belief needed to pull off what is essentially a heist is really quite amazing because he has to be able to walk into that hotel and say not only verbally if necessary but with his entire body language that i belong here so i imagine he was very immersed in that role but it must have been very exciting to him as well because actually it's quite complex it's almost like a scene promotions 11. detectives in las vegas reported that he would steal rolex watches from hotel rooms and hand out these 50 000 pound watches to waitresses for good service but playing the role of the modern day robin hood wasn't the only role bettencourt adopted the mythology of bettencourt is that he tells people he's the son of a diplomat and also that he's a prince from colombia so we can see this in in high rolling con men like betancourt then on the one hand they desperately aspire to be part of this aspiration lifestyle but at the same time they kind of despise it in that they think that these rich people are deserving marks they deserve to get ripped off so you've got this strange dichotomy this dissonance between what you aspire to at the same time what you despise after his trip to las vegas juan bettencourt returned to london in november 2004. because of bettencourt's many aliases he had always eluded the law when he had committed his five-star scam in britain's capital but little did he know when he set to work on this occasion that the con man's infamous reputation was so prolific that the metropolitan police now knew exactly who he was in 2004 he's back in london and in his favorite hunting grounds of kensington and park lane and he's reported to have stolen 36 000 pounds from one businessman in one of those hotels police officers suspected that this was the work of bettencourt but they didn't think that he was in the uk at the time they thought he was in las vegas or russia however something happened on the 20th of december that proved the police's theory completely wrong an officer recognized bettencourt while walking down the street and after following him arrested him the leather jacket that bettencourt was wearing when he was arrested was worth two thousand pounds and was stolen from one of the suites on a hotel in park lane in london as was the eight thousand pound watch he was wearing bettencourt had no aliases to hide behind and while in custody the con man's past finally caught up with him where he was staying police found a number of false ids and they found a russian passport and a spanish passport with his photo on it and the name david iglesias vietto on it which had been stolen from the canary islands the police found thousands of pounds in different currencies plus the clothes and jewelry that he stole from the dorchester hotel bettencourt held his hands up to everything in 2001 and 2004 he agreed to have 14 counts taken into consideration but pleaded guilty to the 40 000 pound robbery in 2001 and the 36 000 pound robbery in 2004. now by anybody's standards that's prolific and by anybody's standards that's a lot of money but i imagine to him given his very humble beginnings that he must have really felt he was living the high life this gave him everything that he needed in april 2005 aged 29 years old juan carlos guzman-bettencourt was sentenced to three and a half years in prison the reality was that he would spend considerably less time behind bars betancourt was sentenced to go to stanford hill prison on the isle of sheppy which is a low security prison he was just two months into his three and a half year sentence when he told prison guards that he had a dental appointment in open prisons it's standard practice for inmates to be able to do such things so an appointment was made and off he went in april 2005 juan bettencourt left the prison for his dental appointment and shockingly he actually did attend that appointment but afterwards he didn't go back to prison he just kept walking he crossed the bridge to the mainland and vanished less than three months into his three and a half year sentence bettencourt walked out of stanford hill and never returned he just kept walking across the bridge onto the mainland the headline read flamboyant dual thief cons his way out of prison little did the con man know that that newspaper headline would be the key to his eventual downfall but not before executing one of his most audacious cons to date this time in dublin [Music] by 2005 juan carlos guzman-bettencourt was one of the world's most infamous con men traveling the world and robbing the most illustrious hotels as he went justice had caught up with the colombian for his five-star hotel scam in london but less than three months into a three and a half year sentence bettencourt conned his way out of prison he disappeared no one knew where he was going to turn up next but most likely it was somewhere where there was an exclusive five-star hotel pushing 30 and what else can he do nothing he doesn't stay in one place for any length of time he's a loner so really it's quite a tragic story if it weren't so morally wrong just 10 days after strolling away from his prison sentence bettencourt arrived in ireland's capital dublin when in dublin he was using one of his dozen or so aliases and this time he was claiming to be alejandro cuenco who was a 25 year old from spain with a new identity new age and new nationality the 29 year old colombian set about his five-star hotel hustle only on this occasion fresh from prison the fugitive had to deviate from his usual con and place himself in an utterly vulnerable position at 9 30 a.m on the 16th of june 2005 bettencourt walked into a five-star hotel in dublin city centre wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt which had to slogan save water drink beer written out usually he's wearing designer clothes but this time he was just out of prison 10 days he was desperate probably for cash at stage so he improvised with what he had his confidence and charm when he entered the hotel he proceeded immediately towards the corridor areas and the lift areas giving the impression that he was a guest in the hotel making his way directly to his room bettencourt would traditionally begin his con by taking his time and ensuring he became a familiar face to the hotel staff so they were conned into believing he was a guest in order to dupe them but in dublin he did not do that he skipped the safety net stages of his heist and went straight in for the kill risking his con unravelling by 10 15 am on that morning we know bettencourt had made his way to the top floor where he met a cleaner coming out of the top suite which usually cost approximately a thousand euros a night to stay in an american couple their children and children's grandmother were staying in the hotel suite and they were in town visiting from beverly hills in l.a bettencourt had set his sights on the most expensive suite in the hotel but he was taking a huge gamble he was relying entirely upon his hypnotic charm to succeed his first interaction with the cleaner was to say that he was a brother of the of the room guest and that he was staying in the hotel suite and he'd forgotten his room key which he'd left inside in the suite and he asked her to let him in to the suite which she refused to do so i'm afraid that you can't know i don't have um permission to let guests into rooms without she asked him to go down to the reception where they would give him a new key by going off script the con man had failed to shortcut his way into the suite however he had evaded detection even though the cleaner didn't give bettencourt the key there was nothing to arouse suspicion he was very polite and they engaged in a general chit chat conversation just passed in the time during that short space of time though he did pick up a vital piece of information he found out that the american family had booked a babysitter for the hotel suite that night and so he was able to go to reception confident and armed with this information the con man had potentially acquired the key to succeeding in the next step of his crime but bettencourt was playing his riskiest game yet bettencourt made his way to defiant where he engaged with the receptionist he spoke with receptionists in bad english to begin with and then asked him do you speak french to which the receptionist did and both engaged in a french conversation where bettencourt explained i have mislaid my room key can you replace and convinced this person to cut a new key card from him and just as he was turning away with oodles of confidence he turns back and says by the way are we okay for babysitting tonight yes now the receptionist had actually made the booking for the babysitter that morning through housekeeping so he was aware that such a booking was made so you can imagine that by asking this question the person at reception had absolutely no doubt but that he was who he said he was now with the sweet key card in his possession bettencourt could revert to his classic con he has the key card and the room number and he makes his way towards the room he makes sure there's nobody inside and he gets into the hotel suite and he then proceeded a generous sweep of the room to see if anything invaluable was lying around inside the room before he made a call to the hotel operator basically tells them that his children have interfered with the safe combination and changed it and so he can't get into the safe and would somebody come up and give him access to the safe in turn the operator made contact with the security officer of the hotel to attend to the guest suite for his purpose after improvising access to the room bettencourt could return to his tried and tested script the security guard had a safety quarter device with him which he placed onto the safe and within a minute or two he managed to open the safe during this time bettencourt engaged in small talk conversation and gave the appearance that he was by all intense purposes the guest in that room bettencourt was completely convincing the con had worked once again when the security guard opened the first safe he noticed a large amount of cash and also passports bettencourt then asked would you please open the safe in the second bedroom the security guard proceeded to the second bedroom and opened the safe again bettencourt had given the same excuse my children are doing this to the saves in every place we go the security guard had no suspicion of bettencourt simply opened the safes and then left and bettencourt could set to work so he helps himself to everything in the safe which was an american passport an american express card a ruby ring and 2 000 pounds worth of cash he then sealed both saves by entering his own pin numbers and then proceeded to leave the room within a matter of minutes 75 minutes after strolling into the hotel bettencourt had stolen two thousand pounds worth of us dollars not to mention the credit card jewelry and passport against the odds bettencourt had done it a master con man from leaving the hotel that morning bettencourt went to grafton street which would be the high-end shopping district in the dublin city area using the american express card he'd stolen he purchased a number of expensive items in various shops throughout the area his first port of call was a record store nearby grafton street where he spent 500 pounds on cds and dvds and he was just getting warmed up for what was to come he then set about buying a large amount of expensive clothing before eventually going to one of the most exclusive jewelers in the dublin city area and purchasing a rolex watch on the card for 16 000 euros within an hour of leaving the hotel bettencourt had spent almost twenty thousand pounds including eleven thousand pounds on a watch and juan bettencourt had done so long before the hotel residents even realized anything was amiss in their suite the american visitors that bettencourt had robbed only realized that their safe had been emptied the following day when they were packing to leave and they couldn't get into the safe and they rang hotel security and they were really surprised to hear from the security man who told them what had happened the day before the guests were equally shocked of course when the safes were opened and there was nothing inside the family had been robbed and until that moment they had had no idea these crimes can often be written off as romantic you know faceless crimes by this debonair clever con man who waltzes in and cons people and charms them with his um with his clever chats but these are real people involved here they must have felt violated someone in you know coming in and stealing their personal property it's not faceless it's real and it's hurtful because bettencourt doesn't actually have to face his victims it's not a direct con he doesn't actually have to think about the consequences to those victims and imagine that he can pass himself off to himself as actually just a bit of a rogue you know and actually look at me aren't i devilish aren't i daring look at what i do without having to think about the emotional side of what he's doing and the devastation that he's causing after the disturbing discovery the police were called the priority in the early stages of the investigation for detective guarder brian mclin was gathering as much information as possible when i viewed the cctv footage within the hotel i was able to see the man who was pointed out by the security guard as the man manhole had opened the safe a picture was unfolding of how events played out on 16th of june 2005. the problem was no one had any idea who the cunning hotel thief was or indeed where he was but the credit card he had stolen revealed his movements after he left the five-star hotel i ascertained the information by speaking with american express about the number of transactions that took place on the card after it had been stolen now i decided what i would do is i would call to each of the shops for two reasons one was to ascertain the cctv footage of beckon court making the transactions and the second would have been to obtain the original receipts which would have been handled by bettencourt as he signed for various transactions and those receipts may glean fingerprint evidence while the papers were checked for prints brian mcclinn returned to the five-star hotel to formally interview the employees and he had a stroke of luck on that morning i was waiting to speak with the security manager standing in the foyer i picked up a uk times newspaper i read an article on one of the pages regarding a flamboyant jewel thief who had escaped from a uk prison this jewel thief as i read was a person who targeted hotel rooms when the security guard came to me in the foyer i immediately showed him the newspaper and said is that him and he replied yes the dublin gardener now knew they were looking for juan bettencourt and then reading the article i could see that metropolitan police force in london had previous dealings with them and they were referred to in the article so that was my first point of contact i really suspected that bettencourt would have left the jurisdiction at that time but having spoken to the london metropolitan police force they said no way he would definitely still be in dublin and he will definitely hit you again brian mclin put out a warning to the other high-end hotels in the city warning them they may be targeted each hotel took the warning on board but the staff member would always smile and say that will never happen to us and that was the attitude that bettencourt had relied upon for the decade he had practiced his five-star hustle but the detective believed the con man would not be residing in the luxurious surroundings that he stole from while he was staying in ireland he imagined the con man's accommodation would involve less salubrious surroundings i had a hunch that bettencourt would stay in a particular area of the dublin city center where hostels are located the reason for this was because i believed that he would keep the head down and stay in a place that doesn't ask too many questions after all bettencourt was a man who was unlawfully large and i focused my attention on that particular district of dublin brian mclin set about using traditional detective work to see if his hunch was right using the photograph of bettencourt available to me from the newspaper article i decided to draw up a flyer i spent a whole day calling to every single bnb hostel and hotel in dublin city central area distributing these particular flyers i spoke with the hotel staff in each of those premises asking is the man staying with you and if he is to make contact brian mclin's instincts paid off we received a phone call from a hostel close by saying that bettencourt the man on the flyer was actually currently in the in the hostel due to the distance away i was i made contact with the local guard station asking for two uniform guards to go to the hostel and apprehend the man exactly a week after bettencourt had hit one of dublin's leading hotels the detective's hard work had paid off and he had him in custody bettencourt was wearing the same rolex watch which he purchased the previous week on the stolen american express card he had a passport in his possession an american passport which was the property of the tourist who had been the victim of the crime at the hotel and he had already doctored it really professionally and placed his photo in it implying that his next port of call was the us uh years earlier he described the us as the land of opportunity so obviously that was his plan the gardener knew exactly who he was however bettencourt was charm personified when attempting to convince brian mclin that he was his alias alejandro cuenco bettencourt explained that his name was alekandro quinca he gave me his data board and he explained to me that he was a spanish national trying to convince me he pulled up his sleeve to show me a tattoo of the spanish national flag on his upper arm had i not known the information which was available to me i would have actually believed him but the detective was sure the man he had in custody was a con man he simply had to absolutely confirm it after i had arrested bettencourt the standard procedure is that he has fingerprinted and photographed that was a standard procedure for every prisoner but in particular in relation to bettencourt i decided that it was necessary to send his fingerprints via interpol to the london metropolitan police for confirmation that the prisoner i had arrested was in fact bettencourt and they were able to do that and and returned to me saying that is correct the prince confirmed what the detective already knew and face to face brian mclin could immediately see why bettencourt was such an effective con man he was very calmly spoken um very polite almost shy is the way i would describe him he answered every question truthfully in my opinion and he made full admissions to his role in the crime but while bettencourt believed he was duping the guard into releasing him on bail he had no idea that he was not the only one with a strategy during the questioning of bettencourt i decided on the strategy of not revealing to him that we were aware of his true identity it was thoroughly cooperative in relation to all aspects of the crime the command often has an over inflated sense of himself and sometimes they will want to show off what they've done and how clever they are so in that sense giving him enough rope to hang himself is quite a good idea um but then there is also a sense in which um bettencourt has quite a standard mo when he's arrested which is because he's quite confident that because of his aliases that he's used that he won't have his former crimes pinned on him maybe he figures that if he cops to the crimes that he committed in this jurisdiction and plays along plays ball with the police and cooperates then he'll be allowed on bail and he can skip the country had we not known of bettencourt's true identity it is likely he probably would have been given police bail and subsequently absconded from the country but he didn't know we were aware of his true identity using the persona of alejandro cuenco bettencourt admitted everything only this time the con man was the one being duped i was biting my time and waiting for the right moment to say i know who you are now george juan carlos guzman bettencourt and it wouldn't be long before the con man's world would come crashing down and the staggering number of countries in which he was wanted would be revealed [Music] in 2005 juan carlos guzman bettencourt's career as a con man and hotel thief had finally caught up with him by posing as a guest the colombian had gained access to a suite in one of dublin's finest five-star hotels and emptied the safe of passports jewellery thousands of pounds and credit cards spending over twenty thousand pounds on them in just an hour during the interview with bettencourt in respect of the hotel burglary he was fully cooperative and respective um of telling us how he spoke to the cleaners the receptionist the security staff and how he emptied the saves of the property within he was also fully cooperative and truthful in relation to his interactions with various people in the shops that he went to with the american express card now in custody the con man believed the guarder thought he was a 25 year old spaniard called alejandro cuenco and confessed in great detail about what he had done on the 16th of june 2005. i received confirmation through interpol that the fingerprints we had taken from the prisoner confirmed he was juan carlos guzman-betancourt and the information also suggested that he was wanted and he had absconded and he was wanted in a number of jurisdictions but bettencourt was completely unaware that detective brian mclin and the dublin guarder knew he was an infamous and internationally wanted con man and hotel thief now they had all the facts and a full and frank confession they could drop their bombshell that they knew he was juan bettencourt i went to him on my final interview which i commenced by explaining to him that i now know who you are i now know you are juan carlos guzman bettencourt i now know you are from colombia the prisoner said i have nothing more to say to you and he made no further reply during that interview or at any time after that under the alias of alejandra cuenco bettencourt had admitted everything he believed this tactic would mean that he would be released on bail so he could then skip the country he was wrong this time there was no escape for the con man later that day bettencourt was charged with offenses relating to the crimes which he was arrested and he was brought to the dublin district court where he gave evidence of his arrest in his charge beckon court was remanded into custody he didn't actually apply for bail after he was charged and he sat on remand until the hearing date which was the following year when he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in jail because he had sat on remand he had served a good bit of that two-year sentence so he was due for release in december 2006. whilst in irish custody interpol released a statement to all countries in which bettencourt was wanted inviting them to pursue an extradition request although bettencourt had walked away from british prison in 2005 he was not extradited back to the uk it was france were the first nation to seek an extradition order back in late 2001 parisian police had arrested and briefly detained the con man after he duped hotel staff out of room keys however in his usual style upon release from dublin in december 2006 the con man disappeared in mysterious circumstances once he was extradited bettencourt resurfaced in september 2009 after he vanished for almost three years he was arrested in vermont after he claimed he had accidentally crossed the canadian american border into the usa after his car had broken down it seems he was attempting to sneak back into the country he first duped in 1993 and once again the con man was in us custody by crossing into what he had described as the land of opportunity um he's now going to have to face a trial and sentence for the offences that he's already committed there and being convicted of on the 9th of june 2010 bettencourt pleaded guilty to the charge of entering into the usa illegally he faces up to 10 years in prison he is also wanted in four states for his man crimes including the 160 000 hotel robbery in las vegas in 2003 and it is likely they will prosecute the international con man is also wanted in canada colombia japan mexico russia thailand and venezuela it seems the only room bettencourt will have access to for the foreseeable future is a prison cell but even now he is behind bars the suave handsome and charming criminal remains a complete mystery he's possibly one of the world's most accomplished con men it's only when police actually confront him and say we know who you are that he's unsettled or phased but otherwise he seems quite proud of his crimes of what he's carried out to date it does make you wonder whether is this just the nature of the con man or actually has something happened in a very difficult and deprived childhood that makes bettencourt want to just carry on running carry on using aliases and jumping from country to country it makes you think well can he ever settle down and that's very sad can he ever stop pretending can he ever stop running now 33 years old juan carlos guzman bettencourt is as much an enigma as when he first mysteriously arrived in miami in 1993 and that mystery fuels the world's fascination with the hotel hustler i knew there was something special about this guy i knew he was wanted around the world i knew that various police forces in europe and the united states had an interest in him but i never would have foreseen the immediate interest that took place when he was eventually arrested and brought to court he doesn't know any other kind of lifestyle what else can he do he's got no home he's just this transient criminal so really if it wasn't so morally wrong it'd be quite a sad story

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 222,404

Keywords: true crime, real crime, true crime documentary, murder documentary, full documentary, conmen case files, conmen, craziest cons, Juan Betancourt, 5 star hotel con

Id: jbeHCXXOsH4

Length: 46min 35sec (2795 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 28 2022