Free Mike on Crime by Mike McIntyre Page A

Free Press as news of the criminal enterprise began trickling out for the first time.
    Blanchard was facing 27 charges, by far the most of any of the accused, and his name was on the figurative masthead of the criminal organization. He had previously lived in Winnipeg, but was most recently on the West Coast. He had also used other identities and was believed to own property around the world “He’s a bit of an international man of mystery, a very interesting guy,” a justice source said of Blanchard.
    The police investigation began in Winnipeg following one of the biggest heists in recent local history. Winnipeg police were initially stumped and turned to Crime Stoppers to publicize the incident and offer a $2,000 reward for information on the May 2004 theft of at least $500,000 from the Polo Park-area CIBC mega-centre. Detectives believed someone broke into the branch at Empress Street and Ellice Avenue just days before its grand opening and emptied the cash out of eight ATMs. They had now identified two suspects, Blanchard and Winnipeg resident Aaron Syberg, as being responsible.
    Investigators eventually got a major break in the case and began exploring the theory that the heist involved a well-organized plot involving several other accused and likely several other crimes in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. That put the Winnipeg Police Service’s Criminal Investigations Bureau, the main city police detective office, front and centre in an investigation would eventually involve several other Canadian police agencies. And it would take them places they couldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams.
    Gerald Blanchard was an international man-of-mystery —even to members of his own family. His father, Gerald Blanchard Sr., told the Winnipeg Free Press he was stunned to learn of his son’s arrest and alleged involvement in a massive criminal organization.
    â€œAll he ever told me was that he buys and sells condominiums,” Blanchard Sr. said in an interview from his home in Strathmore, Alberta. His adopted son, who often went by his middle name of Daniel, usually called each Christmas, but the two hadn’t seen one another for years. “We talked just before Christmas and he said he’d call me again on my birthday,” Blanchard Sr. said. “But he didn’t. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t surprised. I was always kind of suspicious things weren’t on the up and up. I don’t know why. I just wasn’t.”
    His son was born in Canada but largely grew up in Nebraska. Blanchard was deported from the United States several years ago after serving a seven-year jail sentence for stealing a police uniform, gun and other property from the Council Bluffs Police Department in Iowa and a police car from the nearby Omaha Police Department. In hindsight, the case offered up some insight into how cunning Blanchard could be.
    Blanchard escaped custody from Council Bluffs April 27, 1993 after being arrested for car theft, according to a report in the Omaha World-Herald . When no one was looking, Blanchard hid behind a desk, then scaled a wall to hide above ceiling tile until the room was empty and he could leave. He then took with him a police badge, gun, holster, hand-held radio, police cap and coat and duffel bag. He hitched a ride back to Omaha on the back of a motorcycle while wearing the police cap. The next day police found him hiding in the attic of his mother’s residence after the stolen police gear was recovered there.
    But Blanchard wasn’t done with his escape act. While wearing handcuffs, Blanchard stole the Omaha police cruiser from the Central Police Headquarters garage and fled yet again. The two officers who had transported Blanchard to the police garage got out of the car but left the keys in the ignition. As the officers were preparing to get Blanchard out of the back seat, he managed to wriggle his legs up through his handcuffs, putting his