Mael Chemla, a 61-year-old U.S., French and Israeli national who previously lived in Aventura, Florida, was extradited from Germany to face federal charges over a fake-psychic mail scheme that prosecutors say collected more than $4 million from thousands of victims between September 2016 and November 2020. He is charged with conspiracy, mail fraud and wire fraud, and the Justice Department (DOJ) says many of the people who paid were elderly or otherwise vulnerable. The charges are allegations, and he is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
The indictment was unsealed on Nov. 2, and Chemla made his first appearance in federal court in Miami. The maximum penalty on the charges is 20 years in prison. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated, and Trial Attorneys Ann Entwistle and Charles Dunn of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division are prosecuting.
How the psychic letters allegedly worked
According to the Justice Department’s announcement, the letters looked like personalized notes from psychics. The letters told the recipient that the psychic had learned of a large financial windfall, and that the recipient had to send a payment before the windfall could be released.
Prosecutors allege Chemla opened U.S. bank accounts in the names of the supposed psychics. Checks from victims were deposited into those accounts, and the money was then wired to bank accounts in Europe controlled by a co-conspirator. The trail ran from the victim’s mailbox to a domestic account and out of the country.
The scheme is alleged to have run for more than four years. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs supported the case before the German extradition court and coordinated Chemla’s transport with the U.S. Marshals, so the case arrives in Miami almost six years after the last alleged letters went out.
For readers, the question is whether a letter like this has ever reached the household. The pattern is a windfall that arrives only after the recipient pays first, delivered in a letter written to look like a personal message. Anyone who sent a check or money order to a psychic between September 2016 and November 2020, or who helped a parent do it, has a reason to look back through the checkbook and report it.
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A larger psychic mailing case that ended in prison
Federal prosecutors have brought this kind of case before. In an earlier prosecution, Patrice Runner, a Canadian and French citizen, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a psychic mass-mailing operation that the Justice Department said took more than $175 million from more than 1.3 million people in the United States. A federal jury in the Eastern District of New York convicted him in June 2023.
Those letters claimed to be personal messages from “psychics” Maria Duval and Patrick Guerin and offered wealth and happiness for a fee. After one payment, victims received dozens more letters asking for more. The near-identical form letters went out to tens of thousands of people each week, and the mailing lists were rented or traded among mail fraud schemes.
The psychics named in the letters had no role in the operation. Runner ran it through Canadian companies and hid his involvement behind shell companies registered in Canada and Hong Kong, and Spain extradited him in December 2020. Chris Nielsen, the Postal Inspection Service’s inspector in charge in Philadelphia, said Runner “routinely preyed on vulnerable and elderly Americans.”
The Justice Department’s announcement on Chemla does not connect him to Runner’s operation or to the Maria Duval letters. The two cases share a method, not a defendant. What they show is that a mail pitch built on a windfall and an upfront payment has run for decades and the Runner case shows how long one operation can run.
Warning signs and where postal inspectors take reports
The Postal Inspection Service’s psychic scam page lists three warning signs. A guarantee of good health, wealth or fortune that comes with a fee is the first. A request for money, card numbers or bank details from someone the reader does not know is the second, and unclear total costs or undisclosed conditions and ongoing charges are the third.
The same page advises people to learn the total cost and exactly what they will receive before ordering any service, and to talk with a trusted friend or family member first. In both cases described here, the letters were addressed to one person at a time, which is why a second pair of eyes on the mail matters.
Anyone whose mail was used in the scheme can file a report with the Postal Inspection Service online or by phone at 1-877-876-2455. The Postal Inspection Service says that if the U.S. Mail was used in any way, victims should report the crime.
The announcement does not describe a process for returning money to victims, so no claim form exists at this stage. Until the case moves forward, the practical protection for a household is a short list of rules: no payment to receive a prize, and no check made out to a name that appears only in a letter.
Families sorting a parent’s mail can look for the signs the cases describe: repeated letters from the same “psychic,” small checks written to unfamiliar names, and follow-up letters after a first payment. Catching the first check matters, because the pattern in the Runner case was dozens of follow-up letters after one payment.
Letters from a psychic already in the mailbox?
In the alleged Chemla scheme, the money left as checks written by the people who received the letters. No hacker was involved, which is why locking down who can move money matters as much as spotting the letter.
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The guide opens with the one rule that beats every scam and a 60-second scan of where an account stands, and it comes in a large-print edition.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
