Meeting him for the first time in the summer of 2021

By BERNIE BELLAN (This is the continuation of a story that begins elsewhere on this website at The delusional Winnipeg con man who actually believed his own elaborate con and led one victim in Africa to consider committing suicide)

I actually met Fred Devlin several years ago – but never imagined that he was as delusional as I’ve now been made quite aware. As I noted in the story that did appear on my website until I removed it, Devlin believes that he is someone of incredible wealth. Not only that, as I noted at the beginning of that story, he also believes he has had a brilliant business career (and owns over 300 companies or 3,000 companies – depending on when you may have been talking to him. For instance, when I first met him – in 2021, he told me he owned over 300 companies. When I met him again just recently that figure had grown to over 3,300 companies).

He also claims that he is a fervent supporter of the State of Israel, has strong connections to the Mossad, and owns a great deal of land both in Winnipeg and in Israel. Finally, now that he had made his billions (or his trillions, as the case many be), he maintains that he only wants to devote himself to helping others – whether it is by investing in various business ventures or by engaging in philanthropic endeavours.

The problem, as I was to discover as I waded further and further into Devlin’s bizarre story, is that nothing he believes about himself is true. That, in itself, is not so unusual. Many people suffer from different forms of psychosis. The difference between most people who suffer from a psychosis and Fred Devlin, however, is that he has not stopped believing his fantasy for many years now. How long he has been suffering from his psychosis I am not quite sure because, as you might expect, no one close to him in his family is willing to talk about his illness.

And, that is one of the questions that has been plaguing me as I set out to do research for this story: Could Fred Devlin have been stopped through early intervention by individuals close to him? This fellow has been married for many years. What role has his wife played in enabling his delusional behaviour? And what of his parents? As I will explain, they have been well aware that their son is very sick. For how long, I’m not quite sure but, as I will relate, his psychotic behaviour clearly began manifesting itself when he was in his thirties – and he’s now over 60.

Devlin has been in and out of psychiatric wards – that much is apparent from stories I have been told by different people who talked to him at different stages in his life when he was actually hospitalized in different psychiatric wards. (When I was finally able to confront him about his history of being hospitalized because of his psychiatric disorder, of course he denied that’s ever been the case, but then said he didn’t want to talk about it.)

Still, after learning so much about the hurt Devlin has caused to so many people, I kept coming back to wondering what more could have been done to prevent him from inflicting so much damage – and pain, upon so many individuals over a very long period of time, as a result of his harbouring such a deep delusional psychosis? That question is at the heart of what has been motivating me to write this story.

Even as I write this – and so far the process has taken me several months, I continue to receive communications from different individuals whose lives have suffered terrible impacts as a result of having come into contact with Fred Devlin. I feel so helpless when I receive another message – whether it’s through an email, a text, a WhatsApp message, or occasionally a phone call, telling me that someone has just received another message from Devlin – again repeating the same delusional nonsense about his being fabulously wealthy and, that if they waited just a little bit longer, he was going to come through with the financial help he had promised them.

As I’ve already noted, at the beginning of February 2026, I had written the first two chapters of what I thought would be an interesting and probably for most readers, an absolutely unbelievable story about Fredl Devlin. I had posted those chapters to my website with the idea that it would certainly attract interest – and it sure did. It had over 1,000 views within two days.

But, the idea of turning that story into a story? That was the furthest thought from my mind at the time – for a number of reasons. For one, I’d never written a story and I knew how challenging an assignment that is (at least, that is – to write a good story. In the course of my career as a publisher and editor, I’ve received many books from publicists – often authors themselves, that I thought were simply awful – and could, at the very least, have used a good editor. The advent of self-publishing has led to a flood of poorly written books that, had they been submitted to a real story publishing firm, would no doubt have been rejected without hesitation.)

The other reason I was reluctant to turn what I had already written into a full-scale story was that, at first, I thought I didn’t really have enough material to warrant taking on such a daunting project. As time went on, however, and as I began to delve ever deeper into the subject matter that first attracted my attention, I began to hear from more and more individuals who were eventually to become part of the story you are about to read. I soon realized that the story was so much more complicated than I had first thought. In fact, I thought, it probably would best be treated as a continuing series of stories – much like a blog, on my own website, in which I could add new information as it came to me each day.

I wanted to expose that individual by having his name out there for anyone else who might be contacted by him with him telling them he wanted to invest in their projects. That way, I thought, anyone doing an internet search for his name would come across my story and immediately realize that this character is totally delusional – so no one would be duped by him again.

Could I have changed what I had written into something semi-fictitious by changing everyone’s names and kept that story up on my website? Perhaps. But then the story wouldn’t have had the same impact, would it? Who would have known who it was about whom I was writing? That’s the problem with writing a “roman `a clef” which, I admit, is certainly a problem with the way I’m telling the story here. My hope is that this story will serve as yet an added warning to be on guard for con artists, especially when advancements in artificial intelligence have made it so much easier to fool people into believing stories that sound quite credible. The difference in Fred Devlin’s case though has been that as he tells his stories, he sounds all the more convincing because he actually believes them. When I finally got the opportunity to confront him about his trail of deceit, however, even though he kept sticking to the line that everything he says about himself is absolutely “true,” I was able to trip him up by asking him why essential details, such as how many companies he owned, had changed from when I talked to him in 2021 to now. (You’ll see that if you read my entire interview with Devlin, which will be posted later this month.)

Here’s a short excerpt from my asking him about the number of companies he alleges to own:

“Me: How many companies now is it (in the group of companies)?

“Devlin: 3,300… 3,306.

Me: When I spoke to you in 2021, it was 300.

“Devlin: I was being honest. Okay.”

The absurdity of it all might leave you laughing, but bear in mind that I was firing rapid questions at him during that interview, trying to expose how ridiculous he was in talking about how wealthy he is. For almost everyone else to whom I’ve spoken about Fred, however, the impression he leaves is of someone who has quite a bit of money but doesn’t like to disclose the source of that money for reasons of confidentiality. That doesn’t sound so far fetched, does it?

Even as I write this I’m still in touch with people who have been contacted by the person I’m calling Fred Devlin. Several people have already read my first chapter and got in touch with me to tell me their own stories of being acquainted with Devlin.

I’m now so deeply involved in trying to help various characters in this story obtain some degree of justice over what Fred Devlin has done to them though, that I feel I owe them a duty to see this story though to the end – which may mean that I’ll be adding to this story for quite some time.

For instance, as I mentioned, I am now engaged in attempting to facilitate a lawsuit against Fred Devlin by one of the individuals who suffered the worst financial loss at his hands. While others with whom I spoke wasted hours of their time thinking that Paul Devlin was going to invest in their projects, this particular individual actually suffered real monetary loss as a result of his having signed what he thought was a fully legitimate contract with Devlin – in which Devlin assured him that he would be compensated if he were to stop paying any debts he owed to creditors. That promise to be compensated for debts ended up costing that individual a huge amount in penalties for unpaid debts.

And, even though, as I’ve explained, the lawyer who said he’s ready to file a lawsuit advised against it for the reason that Fred Devlin doesn’t seem to have any real money of his own, who knows? Maybe we’ll find that he has been given a great deal of money by his parents. Someone has been paying the charges he’s been racking up at the Fairmont, Hy’s, and other pricey establishments in Winnipeg.

As well, I’ve been helping another of Devlin’s victims – this time someone who lives in Africa. As I write this, that poor fellow has been contemplating committing suicide, he tells me; his life has been ruined so badly by his having fallen for another of the con man’s schemes. I’ve been spending a great deal of time with this poor African fellow – in fact, helping him quite a bit financially, in order to keep him from doing anything rash. That’s how badly some people have fallen prey to the con man who is the subject of this story.

Devlin’s story of conning people goes back to at least 2008, I discovered in talking to one individual who has had contact with Devlin for at least 18 years. Over a period of many years, I found in talking to others, Devlin had convinced a great many individuals that he was someone of immense wealth who was interested in helping them further their ambitions – whether those ambitions were related to business or, in another instance, to creating a charitable foundation.

But, as I’ve already noted, I did publish two chapters about the con man on my website, and I received that warning letter from the lawyer telling me that I could be sued for defamation if I didn’t remove what I had written from my website.

I had previous experience with being threatened with a defamation lawsuit. I had written an exposé of a prominent Manitoba investment fund which, I alleged, was hiding the true state of its precarious financial situation from investors in that fund. I learned from that experience that a lawyer can pick apart a story to find minute flaws and claim that his or her client was defamed as a result, no matter how inconsequential those mistakes may have been to the larger story. Even though I was vindicated in the end in that particular instance by my story eventually proving largely right – and the investment fund was forced into receivership, having to hire a lawyer to fend off a lawsuit taught me that “libel chill” is a very effective tool when someone powerful wants to squelch criticism.

Something else happened to me though, after I published those two stories to my website, and as I continued to probe ever more deeply into the story about which I had begun to write. I began to hear stories from more and more individuals how they, too, had been duped by by the individual whose real name had been exposed in the stories on my website. Their stories were all so fascinating – often bizarre, that I began to think: No one is going to believe this; it’s so outlandish.

So, if it will make you want to read on but, as you’re reading you’re going to say: This is so absurd I can’t believe this really happened, then consider it fiction in the same way that writers such as Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Gay Talese would combine elements of fiction in writing about events that were largely true. I myself don’t know how much to believe of the stories I was told by so many individuals about the person who ensnared them all in what ultimately was one giant delusion, but regardless how much of what they told me was true, the stories were endlessly fascinating.

And that’s what this story is really about. It’s about someone who was – and still is, so completely deluded that when he tells someone that he’s a “trillionaire,” for instance, or that he owns “3,339” different companies around the world well, hard as it is to believe, this guy actually believes what he is saying is true.

As I began to do research for this story I read about individuals who suffer from a delusion psychosis. I referred previously to a definition of delusional psychosis, but just to reiterate, according to the Cleveland Clinic, “delusional psychosis is a mental health condition in which a person can’t tell what’s real from what’s imagined. There are many types, including persecutory, jealous and grandiose types. It’s treatable with psychotherapy and medication.”

During the course of my over-40 year career as a newspaper publisher, I’ve met a number of strange individuals – a few of whom deserved to be put into straitjackets, but never had I met anyone whose story was so strange that when I began telling friends the story, their almost immediate reactions were along these lines: “We don’t believe you. It’s too crazy to have happened.”

I take as inspiration for this story a story that I read and reviewed several years ago, titled “Proof of Life,” written by someone by the name of Daniel Levin. That story tells the story of Levin’s having been engaged to seek the whereabouts of a young American man who had gone missing in Syria in the early days of Syria’s civil war.

Levin describes meeting a wild mix of characters in various parts of the Middle East. Whether the stories they were telling him were true or not he couldn’t actually tell for certain, he admits, but they were all so alluring that he followed up each and every one of them. In the end, he does come to a rather sobering conclusion about what happened to that young American but, like just about every other story about someone who’s gone missing during a period of great turmoil, it’s almost impossible to distinguish fact from fiction as to what really happened.

Still, it’s Levin’s telling of the story that I found so captivating. In the end, it didn’t matter whether he had cobbled together a series of disparate stories that often contradicted one another; the cast of characters he assembled was interesting enough to hold your attention without wondering whether anything Levin says they told him was true or not.

I actually interviewed Levin because I was so interested in knowing what motivated him to enter into a story that was labyrinthian in scope – and I wanted to know more about the techniques he used to get stories from some very scary characters.

I admired his perseverance in chasing down the story – at great risk to his own safety, and I have often thought of his determination not to be deterred from following wherever his story may have led him – no matter how dangerous following that road may have been.

And, because I myself still have such a hard time believing what I’ve been told in the story you’re about to read, rather than simply writing a piece of journalism based on accounts I have been told – which all contain so many gaps and rabbit holes, I thought it best to write something more speculative in which I will imagine what may have led different individuals to fall prey to Devlin’s delusion at different times. In the same way that Daniel Levin had to fill in many gaps when he was writing his story – to the point where it could easily be considered a work of fiction, I’ve had to fill in many gaps in writing this story – also to the point where I now wonder how any of what I’ve heard and read happened could really have happened?

The story begins in Winnipeg, where Devlin grew up – and still lives. According to individuals with whom I spoke who knew him when he was younger, Devlin had a normal childhood. Further, he showed exceptional promise as a student and looked to be headed toward a very successful career path. His wealthy parents were both successful in their respective careers.

Fred claimed to have been successful in business, starting from a very early age – when he was only 18 years old. In one published account he says that he had already developed several properties in Winnipeg by the time he was in his early twenties, and was already CEO of an Ontario-based development company.

Following is a story written about Fred in 1990, when he was just 24. (For the purposes of this story, I’ve changed his name in the 1990 story from how it appeared in the real story.) The story appeared in a business publication, a copy of which you are not likely be able to find anywhere. Luckily, I was able to obtain a copy of the story from someone who had managed to get a hold of a copy of the story. How he was able to do that he would not tell me.

Here is the story:

“When you first meet Fred Devlin, you are immediately impressed both by his youth and his sincerity in what he is doing with his life. At 24 years of age, he has already spent several years in the business trenches, having been the president of his own company since 1986.


“As careful with his words as he is with his investments, he has been programming himself towards success since his initial reach into the speculative market of real estate.

“With his first acquisition of a small property in Winnipeg, he formed Xanadu Enterprises (note: also not the real name of his company). While buying and selling properties yielded significant financial reward, making a fast buck was far from this young entrepreneur’s dream.


“ ‘The property market is not one which facilitates speculative investment and overnight profit,’ he says. ‘Rewards are gained through the acquisition and development of real assets, which, only under proper care, over time, can reach their true potential.’

‘
“Though Fred continues his career in the real estate industry, he decided to return to University to complete his degree in Economics, and target his newly expanded company, Xanadu Corporation, in 1987.


“Combining business with his classes has kept this self admitted workaholic on a six-and-a-half day killer schedule. From seven in the morning to midnight, his days are divided into six hours for classes and related study and six hours are devoted to his business ventures.


“Intending to enter the Master of Business Administration program in the fall of 1990, he has found that the practical experience gained through his real estate developments has complemented his classroom theory.


“With developing and managing real estate projects as his company’s mandate, Fred has concentrated on the Osborne Village area. (Osborne Village is an area in Winnipeg that is close to the downtown.) He finds the area to be ideal for his projects, with its trendy restaurants and shops, while being in proximity to the amenities of downtown.

“To this end, he recently developed Cauchon Place, a luxury condominium project, in conjunction with Tri-Star Development, an Ontario-based company of which he is Chief Executive Officer. The first phase of the project, located at 99 Cauchon Place, has been completed, and all units, valued at $130,00 and up, have been sold.


“Within two to three years Xanadu Corporation expects to have five more units ready for mixed commercial and office space. The expansion of his company has allowed Fred to take on new investors, secure a larger line of credit and utilize various tax advantages.


”Foregoing much of the immediate gratification of someone who has achieved financial success, Fred still lives at home with the two people he refers to as his best friends, his mother and father.


“ ‘I’m a fairly family oriented person and they support me unconditionally in whatever I attempt, even though I don’t always take their advice,’ he says with a smile.

“Always looking for new projects to develop, either independently or with a small group of investors, Fred is now acquiring two apartment complexes that have been converted into commercial space, again in the Osborne Village area. He also has his eye on another type of development: ‘A senior citizens’ complex,’ he says, ‘where the environment is designed to suit the tenant’s specific ethnic and social needs, rather than the needs of the developer,’ is ‘high on his priority list.’

“Anther project on the drawing boards, with a long-time friend, is a medical office, with a group of interdisciplinarian specialists who would have direct ownership in the building.
 ‘I’m not a fan of strip malls,’ says Fred. ‘They become indistinguishable from one another and attract an eclectic assortment of tenants. What medical office wants to be next door to a video store selling adult films? You want some control over your working environment.’

” ‘We need to stop trying to copy other cities. Just because something works for Toronto or Vancouver does not make it automatically right for Winnipeg.’ Fred adds that ‘a city has to grow to justify developments like The Forks, The Exchange District and Portage Place, with the buildings following a logical and consistent plan.’ He foresees a trend in multiple use space, combining commercial, retail and living areas in one well designed building.
‘I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I feel I have a destiny to do something of great value with my life,’ he says. ‘I want the world to know I was here.’

” ‘A building, for example, should be more than just a structure; it should improve the quality of life for the people who work and live there. That’s what I want to achieve.’

“W
hen you consider that this young man started off in 1986 with an investment of $3,000 and is now 50 percent owner in a million dollar investment company, maybe we should listen.”

Pretty impressive, huh? How much of what was written in that article was true is impossible to know, but I did some investigating of some parts of what Devlin claimed to have done. I did a search for Tri-Star Development, for instance, but could find no reference to a company in Ontario by that name – although it’s possible that one may have existed in 1990. As for “99 Cauchon Place,” all that turned up was a nice looking two-unit town home on 99 Cauchon Street – but no luxury condominium project called 99 Cauchon Place.

And, as for the project that Fred wanted to develop with a friend – I contacted that friend, whose name I recognized in the original article – and was someone I knew. He told me that he had left Winnipeg in 1989 and had never entered into any sort of a plan to develop a medical office with Fred.

The author of that article passed away several years ago. I would have loved to have asked that person whether they ever did anything to corroborate any of Devlin’s story. Looking back on the inconsistencies that I was able to discern, it points to an early pattern of Devlin’s dissembling – something that was going to emerge as a much more severe issue later in his life.

One line in that story though, really resonates, when Devlin says: ” ‘I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I feel I have a destiny to do something of great value with my life. I want the world to know I was here.’

Was that the first hint that Devlin had delusions of grandeur? Perhaps, but as I was to discover, Devlin actually did embark on a course that would most likely have led to his becoming a very successful businessman had something not happened to him at some point when he was around 30. In fact, Devlin did obtain a Masters of Business Administration – in 1992.

The only other chapter of his life that I could come across, aside from that article written about him in 1990, was when he assumed a position of some authority in the area of aviation and there was a reference to him in a 1998 article noting his having become executive director of something called the Airport Area Business Development Zone. (Later, when I received a surprise message from Devlin inviting me to meet with him and did actually meet with him, he claimed to have been involved with the opening of something called Winnport. You can read the complete transcript of that meeting at the end of this story.)

What happened in Devlin’s life in the intervening years between 1998 and now I’m not exactly sure. I happened to know Devlin’s parents – not well, but well enough to have asked them years ago when it was that their son started to develop the delusion that he was a fabulously successful businessman? As one might expect when it comes to talking about a son or daughter who is clearly disturbed, Devlin’s parents did not want to discuss his situation beyond admitting that he “wasn’t well.”

That conversation with his parents – specifically his mother, however, did not occur until about six years ago, when Devlin himself had called me out of the blue, saying that he wanted to meet with me because he wanted me to write a story about him. I did agree to meet with him. I vividly recall that meeting because it was quite a warm summer day in Winnipeg and we had arranged to meet on the outdoor patio of a well-known Winnipeg pizzeria.

Not knowing what Devlin looked like, but since he had told me he knew who I was from seeing my picture in my newspaper, I arrived early so that he would be able to find me seated at a table. I was quite surprised when, despite the warm temperature that day, up walked a man wearing a trench coat – and dark glasses. He didn’t take off those glasses until well after we had begun to talk. That in itself was not so unusual; keeping that trench coat on though? That was simply weird.

As we engaged in conversation, Devlin mentioned that he quite admired my writing and what I had done with my newspaper. In fact, he said, he’d like to talk about buying it.

“Oh really?” I thought. Well, that’s interesting. But, it was when he began to describe his vast business enterprises that I began to wonder whether this guy was for real.

However, Devlin had come prepared. He had a briefcase with him – and out of that briefcase he pulled a small photo album. Among the pictures he showed me were ones of an executive jet. That jet had a logo on it – a logo, which Devlin said, was the logo of his company. He also mentioned that the late Winnipeg business mogul Izzy Asper had taken a liking to him and, in fact, had mentored Devlin for a time.

“Impressive,” I thought. But why hadn’t I heard of him? I wondered. I asked him that same question.

His answer was that he kept a very low profile, so as not to attract attention to himself. Also, since he was now so fabulously wealthy, his main goal in life, he explained, was to devote himself to what he described as “tikkun olam,” which is a phrase in Hebrew meaning “repair the world.”

To that end, Devlin said, he had established a charitable foundation and was engaged in various philanthropic projects around the world. And that’s why Devlin wanted to meet with me, he noted. He wanted me to write about all the good work he was doing in the world.

Well, that didn’t quite fit with keeping a low profile, I thought, but then again I was just the publisher of a small Jewish newspaper in Winnipeg. Writing an article about him for my paper wasn’t necessarily a contradiction of his wanting to keep a low profile. (It’s not as if you can say about being profiled in what was then The Jewish Post & News or what is now jewishpostandnews.ca: “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”)

So far, so good, I thought. What Devlin was saying might be true. He just might be a very wealthy businessman – one who wanted to do good in the world. (Remember that description he gave of himself in that 1990 article.)

To reassure me that he was on the up and up, Devlin handed me a business card – with his group of companies logo emblazoned on the front. What was even more impressive was the address that the card gave as the headquarters for his group of companies: Luxembourg!

“Wow!” I thought. This guy might be the real deal. Luxembourg? You have to be of some substance to be headquartered in Luxembourg. Devlin told me to contact the CEO of his company, someone I had also never heard of, by the name of David Simkin (and, in this case, I’m using the real name that was printed on the back of that business card rather than a phoney name because, as far as I could ascertain, there is no such person as David Simkin. He’s just another figment of Fred Devlin’s delusion.)

Simkin’s name and email address, Devlin indicated, was on the back of the card. The card said that the head office for his company was in Luxembourg. At that point I told Devlin that I would look into his company with an eye toward doing a story about him. Despite his rather strange appearance and the fact that I had never heard of him, who was I to dismiss him as inauthentic? One thing about our leaving to go our separate ways that set me wondering about him when we both got up to leave, however, was his obvious discomfort when I thanked him for my meal. He seemed quite uncomfortable with having to pay the bill, small amount that it was notwithstanding.

I returned home and immediately began to look up his company name on the internet. I could find a name all right, but nothing beyond that. There was no description anywhere just what is was that this group of companies actually did or even what were names of any of the companies in the supposed group of companies.

I did send an email to the email address for David Simkin that was given on the card Devlin had handed me – and it didn’t bounce back. But when, after a couple of days of not hearing anything from this Simkin character who, Devlin had said, was the CEO of his vast group of companies, I began to suspect that the whole thing was some sort of twisted joke.

I happened to have Devlin’s mother’s phone number, so I called her. I told her about my meeting with her son. Her response, as I’ve already noted, was: “He’s not well.” She also added: “Go easy on him.”

All right, it wasn’t the first time I had met someone who had embellished their achievements and wanted me – or one of my writers, do a story saying how successful they were. I simply put Devlin out of my mind and left it at that – for a while.

Several months later, however, I got another phone call from Devlin, this time saying he wanted to talk seriously about buying my newspaper. Now, I should explain that, while I could dismiss him as a phoney, I did know his parents had money. I figured that even if he himself had no money, he could probably get his parents to put up the cash – depending on what amount we were talking about. (I should also explain that, at that point, I was quite willing to sell The Jewish Post & News. In fact, I had been actively seeking a buyer for some time – to no avail.)

I did agree to meet with him, this time at a very well known hotel in downtown Winnipeg, the Fairmont. (That hotel would come to figure prominently in many of the stories I was to hear later from many of the individuals who had fallen prey to Fred’s tangled web of deceit. And, as you will see if you read to the end of this story, it was to the Fairmont I headed when I received a surprise phone call from Devlin months after I had begun to write this story, inviting me to meet with him in person.)

We met, had a cup of coffee, but nothing ensued. There was no discussion of his buying the paper beyond his saying it was something he still wanted to do. But, what of all the good works he was doing all around the world? he asked me. Was I still willing to do a story about him?

“Is this guy for real?” I thought. I remembered the words his mother had used: “Go easy on him.” I told Devlin that I was sorry, but I just couldn’t find anything at all to substantiate what he had told me about his vast group of companies, so unfortunately there would be no story. I didn’t want to say to him what I really thought, which was that he was a total nutcase.

And, that’s where my involvement with Devlin ended – except for a chance meeting somewhere a few year later (where it was, I can’t remember) when Devlin happened to be with a woman whom he introduced as his wife. I was also with my wife, whom I also introduced. We left it at that.

Coming next: An email I received on January 16, 2026 that set me off on the effort to bring a halt to the con man’s trail of deception

Just as a new flotilla purportedly carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza set sail Sunday from Barcelona, new allegations emerged that a senior figure on last year’s voyage — which included pro-Palestinian climate activist Greta Thunberg — was involved in a sex scandal with multiple activists aboard the ship, along with claims of financial misconduct tied to the same network.
According to a statement initially circulated internally and then republished on X, a senior organizer from the Global Sumud Flotilla’s steering committee, a member referred to only as “BL,” was involved in sexual misconduct with multiple fellow activists. 
“Not one person. Not Two. Three different individuals,” the statement from the Heart of Falastin admin team said, adding that BL’s conduct was jeopardizing the flotilla’s “sacred” mission. 
“Let’s be clear about something. We don’t care what anyone does in their private time,” the statement said, but added that such conduct on “a boat heading to Gaza, a space that should be sacred, focused, and disciplined … is a red line” and a “clear violation of ethics and power.”
Such behavior was “an abuse of power, creat[ing] a toxic environment [that] compromises the integrity of the entire mission,” the English and Arabic statement read. 

The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) leadership was informed more than six months ago, the statement said, but the individual remained on the steering committee, the movement’s highest governing body, with no investigation opened and no public statement acknowledging the alleged violation.

“We gave them time. We gave them every opportunity to do the right thing. They refused,” it said. 

Last year’s voyage drew significant attention due to the participation of Thunberg, former Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau, and European Parliament member Rima Hassan, and ended with activists detained by Israeli authorities after attempting to breach the naval blockade of Gaza. Videos released by Thunberg and other activists in one of the earlier voyages over the summer described their detention as a “kidnapping,” while footage published by the Israel Defense Forces showed Thunberg eating sandwiches given to her by troops. 

The flotilla also faced criticism over the small quantity of aid onboard. Both Israel and Italy offered to transfer the supplies into Gaza through existing channels to avoid confrontation, but the proposals were rejected by the GSF.

According to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the 42 vessels in the September flotilla carried roughly two tons of aid, which it said at the time was “less than one-tenth of a single aid truck,” noting that about 300 trucks entered Gaza each day. The ministry also dubbed the convoy a “selfie yacht of celebrities.”

The New York Times and other news sites reported claims from GSF participants of explosions from Israeli attack drones. “We believe these drones are intended to intimidate, potentially gathering intelligence for Israel,” the Times cited the group as saying, adding that it “suggested ‘Israel and its allies’ were involved.”

But the drone attack allegations were later challenged by video footage that appeared to show an activist misfiring a flare.

The latest flotilla has been described as the largest to date, with 39 vessels departing from Barcelona and additional participants expected to join. Its launch coincides with a fragile two-week ceasefire with Iran.

The first part of a multi-series story

By BERNIE BELLAN

Introduction

The story you’re about to read originally began as a work of non-fiction. Although everything in this story is true, I’ve changed the names of most of the individuals mentioned in this story – to protect their identities.

This story is about a very sick man who lives in Winnipeg and who has caused terrible damage to many different people over a long period of time by promising he would invest in projects with different individuals. The reality, however, was that the person making all those promises was – and still is, deeply delusional. In fact, while he has very little money, for years he has believed he was someone of immense wealth – and has been telling people all over the world that phoney story. Further, because he is actually highly intelligent and, at one point, had a very successful business career, he has been quite adept at convincing different people all over the world who were looking for someone to help invest in their particular projects that he would invest in those projects.

I originally posted that story – in two parts, on two separate days, to this website in early February 2026. When I posted that story though, I didn’t hide the name of the person who is now the subject of this story. Two days after the first part of that story appeared on this website, however, I received a warning email from a lawyer – who happens to be someone I’ve known for a long time, but who also explained that he’s a cousin of the individual who was the subject of my story. In that email the lawyer wrote that, unless I removed that story from my website immediately, I could be sued for defamation.

That lawyer said that he was acting for the parents of the man about whom I had written my story. Receiving that email incensed me because, as you read on, you will see that many of the individuals who suffered greatly as a result of what had happened to them when they were contacted by the “con man” about whom this story is written, had attempted to reach out to the con man’s parents, asking them to do something to keep their son from continuing to deceive individuals with promises that he would invest in the various projects which these individuals hoped to see succeed.

But – that email had the desired effect. As I will explain, I’ve had previous experience with being threatened with a defamation lawsuit and I had no desire to go through that experience again. So, I took the story down.

This story though, was something I was very ambivalent about writing in the first place because it’s about someone who suffers from a very serious mental disorder and, in my career as a journalist, I’ve preferred to stay away from doing medical stories, especially ones that relate to psychiatric illnesses. I have had writers who specialize in medical stories work for me and I know how much effort they would put into understanding what it was they were writing about when it came to specific illnesses. It’s time consuming to do the necessary research and not easy for a writer who doesn’t have a medical background to understand the terminology involved in doing those kinds of stories.

This story, therefore, is not intended to offer a deep dive into the one particular form of mental disorder that, it seems apparent, has affected the principal subject of this story – in this case a delusional disorder – or psychosis. I don’t know his medical history, so when I say that he has a delusional disorder, I’m offering that assessment based entirely on his behaviour, not on any actual medical reports.

In speaking with his mother many years ago, after I had first met the man who is the subject of this story, I was told by her that her son is bi-polar. Whether he is or is not bi-polar though, he is totally delusional. About that, there can be no doubt. Further, his behaviour clearly fits a diagnosis of a delusional psychosis, so I am going to refer to him throughout this story as someone who is suffering from a delusional psychosis. For the purpose of this story, I’ve given him a name which is not his real name: Fred Devlin.

I have no idea what may have triggered the delusion that so clearly manifests itself in Devlin’s behaviour, but the harm he has caused to so many people over the years is a clear indication that his disorder has not been brought under control or, even if it has been brought under control at times, it couldn’t have been for very long, since I spoke to many individuals who had been contacted by Devlin, going back quite a few years – all of whom told similar stories of being totally deceived by him.

I won’t pretend to understand what may have led Devlin to become so totally delusional that he can no longer distinguish fantasy from reality. He has been hospitalized many times, according to individuals with whom I spoke, but it is apparent that even when he’s been hospitalized, he still behaves in a delusional manner.

According to material found on the internet – “Delusional disorder is a psychiatric condition characterized by the presence of one or more fixed, false beliefs (delusions) lasting for at least one month, without other prominent psychotic symptoms like hallucinations or disorganized thought. Individuals often function normally apart from the delusion, which can be non-bizarre (situations that could occur in real life)….Their delusions are not caused from drugs or general disorders.”

“Delusional psychosis (or delusional disorder) is treated primarily through a combination of antipsychotic medications and psychotherapy, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), often requiring long-term management. Treatment aims to reduce symptoms, improve functioning, and build trust, as individuals frequently lack insight into their condition and may resist care.”

I don’t know enough about Devlin to know what kind of treatment he may have received over the years but, whatever treatments there may have been, they clearly didn’t work. He has carried on a long pattern of promising substantial financial support to a great many different individuals – who put their trust in him, often signed contracts with him and, in many cases, spent huge numbers of hours working on projects, only to learn that it was all for naught because Devlin was a total fraud. Many of those stories will be told in the following pages.

Further, when he has been confronted over his lies, Devlin has consistently lashed out at anyone who would dare suggest he’s delusional, threatening those individuals with lawsuits or other forms of retaliation. Even as I’ve been writing this story, apparently word of what I’ve been doing has filtered back to Devlin, and he’s threatened different individuals who have been telling me their stories that he will commit great harm to them if they continue to cooperate with me.

Some of the individuals whose stories are told in this story related to me that they would often get phone calls from Devlin while he was hospitalized in different psychiatric wards. He would make excuses for his being hospitalized – that he was sick with various physical illnesses whose nature would vary, but he would never admit that he had been placed in a psychiatric ward.

It is also possible that, since he is totally delusional, he did believe that he was in the hospital for reasons that had nothing to do with him being mentally ill. At one point, for instance, when he was asked by another psychiatric patient why he was in the psych ward, Devlin replied that he owned the hospital and he just wanted to see how they were treating patients there. As you can read when I tell that story in more detail later on, the psych patient who asked Devlin that question didn’t think there was anything unusual about Devlin’s answer. That tells you all you need to know about the state of mind of the person who told me that story.

Although I was somewhat amused that he didn’t find Devlin’s having told him that he owned the hospital where they both found themselves at all difficult to believe, I found that a great many of the other individuals who were caught up in Devlin’s con also suffered from various psychological disorders of one sort or another. In some ways it goes to explain how otherwise intelligent sounding people might have fallen for stories that one would normally expect would be dismissed as utter nonsense.

One of the mysteries in learning about Devlin though, was who was putting him into the hospital on those occasions when he ended up in the psych ward? Was it his wife? Was it his parents? It really doesn’t matter – but his wife and his parents have been complicit in allowing Devlin to perpetrate his delusional behaviour for years and, I would argue, bear responsibility for the damage he has caused to so many different people. What does matter is that he has engaged in communication with so many different individuals over a great many years while suffering from the delusion that he is immensely wealthy and is capable of offering huge financial help to trusting individuals. (There are other aspects of his delusion too, about which I’ll write, such as that he is guarded by agents from Israel’s Mossad, that he is very involved in helping maintain Israel’s security, and that he owns huge tracts of land in Winnipeg and in Israel.)

One of the things I learned during the course of my investigation into Devlin’s long career as a con artist – and I have to reiterate that he didn’t actually realize he was a con artist, was that he likes to spend his days in a very fancy Winnipeg hotel that’s very popular with Winnipeg’s business crowd – the Fairmont, where he holds court. Devlin has a regular table in a restaurant there and is well known by many of the staff there.

He also likes to hang out an another nearby spot that’s also popular with the business crowd: Hy’s. In fact, after I had finished writing most of this story I was surprised to be contacted by Devlin himself, inviting me to meet him at either the Fairmont or Hy’s. That very strange meeting, which happened to take place at Hy’s, forms the basis of the final chapter of this story.

One of the things I asked Devlin at that meeting, however, is who was paying for all his meals at those two establishments? As I will show, Fred Devlin has no visible means of support, which means that someone else is providing him with the money that is allowing him to continue perpetrating his con – even as I write this. I asked Devlin that very question when I sat face to face with him, but when he still insisted that he is fabulously wealthy – a trillionaire nine times over as a matter of fact, I persisted in asking him whether it’s not the case that his parents have been providing for him for years? In fact, it’s his parents’ role, also his wife’s, in allowing Devlin to carry on his nonsense for so many years that has allowed him to inflict so much damage on so many people’s lives.

Many of the individuals with whom I spoke – or with whom I exchanged a lengthy email correspondence in one particular case, recounted their having reached out to Devlin’s parents in attempts to have them intercede once those individuals realized that Devlin was a complete fraud. Those attempts were all met with the same explanation from Devlin’s parents, I was told: that Fred Devlin was not well – and to leave it at that. In no case did his parents offer to intercede, even when told how much Devlin’s behaviour had so negatively affected so many individuals.

You may be asking yourself: Why write about someone who was – and still is, so clearly mentally ill? The reason is that what Fred Devlin did – to so many different people and, even as I’m writing this, is apparently still attempting to do, was so awful, that when I was first told about him in an email I received on January 16, 2026, my initial reaction was: What could I do to expose this guy and keep him from harming anyone else? My thinking was that if I wrote about him and published something on my website, at the very least others who might be contacted by him, but who would do an internet search to verify who he was, would see my story and realize he’s a total fraud.

Unfortunately, when I was threatened with a lawsuit over what I had written – and I immediately withdrew what I had published, I thought that instead, I’ll write the same story, but I’ll use a different name for the subject of my story – and not use his wife’s or his parents’ real names either.

In addition, I had already promised everyone with whom I spoke for the purpose of gathering material for this story that I would not use their real names in whatever story I would write. I didn’t want to embarrass any o f them by revealing that they had fallen for Devlin’s deception. Thus, my giving everyone different names than their real ones is consistent with what I had told each of them I would do. What I had told each of the individuals whose lives were impacted by Paul Devlin though, was that I wanted to write about what had happened to each of them and include it in a larger story.

Each part of this continuing story will tell a different story – as told to me by each of the individuals with whom I communicated over a period of time in an attempt to understand just how Fred Devlin had convinced each one of them that he was fabulously wealthy and he was going to help each of them with particular projects in which they were involved. How Devlin found each of these individuals is in itself a mystery. Apparently, he is very adept at networking, so that one individual whom he would contact would put him in touch with another individual – and so on, to the point where he built up a large network of contacts.

As I’ve become immersed in this story, however, I’ve been playing a more active role than simply as a journalist trying to write a story. I’ve been quite involved in trying to help one of Devlin’s victims – who suffered the worst financial losses of any of the individuals with whom I spoke who had told me they had fallen victim to Fred Devlin’s promises of financial help. I’ve been trying to help this one individual launch a lawsuit against Devlin. Although we did garner the interest of one of Winnipeg’s top civil litigators, in the end the notion of filing a lawsuit against Devlin was abandoned for the simple reason that it’s pointless to sue someone who has no money or assets and, as the lawyer explained, it would not be possible to attach either Devlin’s wife’s name or his parents’ names to any lawsuit – no matter how much one might argue they bore responsibility for his behaviour by not keeping him under careful supervision.

I’ve also been attempting to contact various police agencies to see why no fraud charges have been filed against Devlin. That story is ongoing as I write this, but here we’re running up against bureaucratic police behaviour – in which one police agency is reluctant to cooperate with another police agency. To illustrate, a detective in the York Regional Police department did open an investigation into Devlin back in January 2026 at the behest of an individual who lives in Toronto who was one of Devlin’s victim but, since Devlin himself lives in Winnipeg, that detective sent the file to Winnipeg Police Service. However, the detective in the York Regional Police department attached a file number to that file. When the individual in Toronto who had filed the complaint with York Regional Police contacted WPS to ask whether a file had been received from York Regional Police the answer he was given was that the “case file number you refer to would not be associated with a WPS numbering system as our case numbers would start with a letter, year, and file. (C2600XXXXX).

 “As such, I did not find a any case number associated with Mr. … in our police records.”

What was strange though, was that the detective with the York Regional Police had sent that file by registered mail – and it had been signed for by someone in the WPS.

When the person who filed that original complaint asked WPS to search for the file, he did receive a confirmation that they had found the file – but would not provide any further information. So, who knows? Maybe long after this is published we’ll hear something about the WPS actually launching an investigation into the person we’re calling Fred Devlin here.

I’ve also been trying to help another of Devlin’s victims – this time someone who lives in Africa, try to restore his reputation in his community. This poor fellow had gone so far, at Devlin’s behest, as to set up a charitable foundation in the phoney name of Devlin’s supposed group of companies – using money borrowed from someone in his community, after Devlin had promised him he would provide funding for that charitable foundation. That African individual has told me several times that he is thinking of committing suicide, both because he is now a pariah in his community for having promised the members of his community that a large charitable foundation was about to be set up there, and because he is in debt to a money lender in his community to whom he owes a great deal of money with no practical means of paying off that debt.

I actually went so far as to send this poor fellow enough money to stave off the money lender from coming after him for a few months. As I write this, I don’t know what the African individual’s status is re the debt he owes, although I am staying in constant communication with him – in no small part because I don’t want him to kill himself over what Fred Devlin did to him. The story of the African man who just wanted to help others by starting a charitable foundation – that was supposed to be funded by Fred Devlin, is told in the second last chapter of this story.

So, I have more than a dispassionate interest in telling a good story. I’ve placed myself directly into the story itself – and my hope is that, at some point I’ll be able to report that, at the very least, Devlin is no longer perpetrating his frauds on anyone else. That could happen in one of three ways: The individual whom I’ve been assisting in finding a lawyer who would be willing to sue Devlin has also been in contact with police authorities. Perhaps there will be a charge or charges laid against Devlin but, in truth, it’s been more than three months since the police were first contacted about Devlin by that individual and, to date, nothing has happened.

The second possibility is that we may discover that Devlin actually has a sizeable amount of money – perhaps given to him by his parents. He does spend his days in fairly expensive surroundings – as I noted. While a lawsuit seems improbable at this point, the lawyer who was considering whether to file one certainly agreed that there are very solid grounds to file one, but warned that it would be fruitless unless it can be shown that Devlin either has money or owns some assets of real value.

The final possibility is that the individuals who are closest to Devlin – his wife and his parents, would take concerted action to put a stop to his behaviour. All they have to do, realistically, is make sure he never comes into contact with a phone or a computer ever again. It’s by contacting unsuspecting people all over the world and feeding them a line about how wealthy he is that Devlin has been able to carry on his gigantic fraud for so many years. But, if he’s not able to contact anyone – via a phone or a computer, then it would be possible to put a stop to his behaviour. Is that so difficult to do? I suppose the answer is yes, it’s very difficult to do. How do you keep someone from obtaining a phone these days? At the very least, if he could be monitored closely then Devlin might be prevented from reaching out to more innocent victims which, unless he’s stopped, he is bound to persist in doing.

I should note that, in writing a story that is still ongoing, I’m having to make constant additions to the story as new information comes to my attention. For instance, even though I’ve already noted that I had published a story on my website about the real person whom I’ve chosen to refer to as Fred Devlin here – and I did remove it, I have now been made aware that apparently someone managed to retrieve what I had posted even after it was expunged, and another website was created with the sole purpose of republishing what I had written. Thus, I might still be held accountable for what I originally published – even though I did remove it from my website. But, since that story has apparently been quite accessible for quite some time, according to what I was told, and I haven’t heard anything more from the lawyer who warned me I could be sued for defamation, my guess is that Devlin’s parents realize that suing me would only cause them greater embarrassment than if they simply did nothing.

Perhaps, too, the embarrassment of seeing that story still disseminated on the internet might be enough to motivate Devlin’s parents to keep him in check – something, I would suggest, they have been fully capable of doing ever since he developed his psychosis. Since his parents have refused to discuss their son’s condition with me, I have no idea what steps they may have taken over the years to harness his behaviour, ever since they learned that their son is mentally ill. I do feel compassion for them – and how much anguish their son must have brought to their lives, but the fact is he has brought so much grief upon so many others that any compassion I feel for them is outweighed by the anger I have that they have been complicit in allowing him to con so many people.

Coming next: My own meeting with the delusional Winnipeg con man six years ago