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 Editorials | Issues | April 2008 
Mexican Lawyer Owns Con Man's Former Mansion
 Charles Rusnell - Canwest News Service
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| | Alyn Waage | | |
Edmonton - Canadian con man Alyn Waage yesterday said he was surprised to learn that his former Puerto Vallarta mansion is now owned by his Mexican lawyer, a close friend and advisor to former Mexican president Vicente Fox, and is for sale for $3.5-million.
"This is the first I have heard of it," Waage said in a telephone interview from a North Carolina prison where he is serving out the final two years of a 10-year sentence.
Waage confirmed he bought the 15,000 square-foot Casa Cristina with $1.2-million of the $60-million he pulled in from an Internet-based fraud scheme he operated from Mexico between 1999 and 2001.
And like the supporters of his former chef, Brenda Martin - the Canadian woman imprisoned without trial for more than two years - he wonders how his former lawyer, Marco Antonio del Toro of Guadalajara, can be allowed to own an asset bought with the proceeds of his crime while Ms. Martin languishes in prison, accused of accepting a grand total of $26,000 from Waage.
"I have no idea how that can be," Waage said, adding that he learned anything is possible in Mexico.
Mr. del Toro was an advisor to Mr. Fox during his successful run for the presidency in 2000 and subsequently served on then president Fox's transition team.
The mansion is just one of several of Waage's former assets worth millions of dollars that the Mexican government has repeatedly refused to turn over to federal U.S. justice officials, a federal prosecutor says.
The Puerto Vallarta assets include Waage's former mansion, another house worth at least $800,000, and at least six waterfront condos valued at more than $250,000 each.
Ms. Martin has been imprisoned since Feb. 17, 2006, charged with knowingly accepting illicit funds of $26,000. She said the money was severance pay from Waage, who employed her as a chef.
"Why has the lawyer not been charged with accepting illicit funds?" Ms. Martin's childhood friend, Deb Tieleman said this week. |
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