By BERNIE BELLAN This is the fifth part of a story about a delusional Winnipegger who believes he is someone of great wealth and has spent the better part of 30 years contacting people all over the world telling them that he wants to invest in their businesses or projects.

The other three parts have been posted here at: Part 1: “The delusional Winnipeg con man who actually believed his own elaborate con and led one victim in Africa to consider committing suicide”; Part 2: “Meeting the con man for the first time in 2021; Part 3: “An explosive email arrives in my inbox on January 16.”; and Part 4: Someone in LA figures out who everyone else was that was conned

Just as Rick had blown hot and cold in responding to my questions – which I found so difficult to understand since he was the one who had initiated contact with me, a lot of the others with whom I was to come to speak over the ensuing days were also extremely ambivalent about speaking with me. Some of them expressed distrust of journalists, others said that what Devlin had done to them had so harmed them psychologically that they didn’t want to speak about it.

I thought it was all so strange. Here we had a group of individuals who had all been victimized by one man. Granted, I could understand their being somewhat embarrassed to talk about what had happened to them, but didn’t they want to retaliate at Devlin by having their stories told? I wondered. Further, in one particular instance, as I’ve noted, I went so far as to put one individual who had lost a great deal of money as a result of Devlin’s manipulation in touch with a very prominent Winnipeg lawyer who agreed to have his firm consider filing a lawsuit against Devlin.

The first person with whom I spoke over the phone was Dan Winthrop. Dan had a background in an aviation-related industry that gave him some common background with Devlin who, as I previously noted, also had business experience in the aviation industry. It was that commonality that had apparently led Devlin to reach out to Dan many years ago – with a proposal that became so detailed and complex that it led to Dan’s devoting many years of his life in pursuit of making that proposal come to fruition. Dan’s story was my first exposure to a plan which Devlin developed which was so intricate that Devlin himself must have devoted many hours to, at the very least, studying it – as well as leading Dan to think that it was going to be brought to fruition.

In the process, as I was to discover subsequently, Devlin involved many others in the plan, including a lawyer who wrote contracts for various parties. Of perhaps more importance, as I was to come to learn, that same lawyer also prepared non disclosure agreements in every instance where Devlin entered into plans with individuals. Devlin did not want anyone with whom he was in contact to discuss their dealings with anyone else. In hindsight, that should have been an indication that Devlin had some awareness that what he was doing was all invented nonsense, but it is also possible that he was also putting into practice his previous business experience, which might have taught him that obtaining non disclosure agreements before discussing detailed business plans was a very necessary and important step to take in every instance.

Following is part of my conversation with Dan Winthrop. I should note that, although Dan went off the record when it came to discussing a specific project that Fred Devlin had told him he would help promote – and I won’t mention that specific project in my writing about my conversation with Winthrop, it was when I had a subsequent conversation with an Israeli now living in the US that I was able to learn more about that project, which involved converting jets purchased from Israel Aerosapce Industries into water bombers of some sort.

Me: “Dan, you said that you first encountered Fred Devlin about 16 years ago, is that right?”

Dan: “Yes, I think it was either 2008, 2010, you know, I can’t remember.”

Me: “And how did you come to meet him? What was the background? Did he contact you? “

Dan: “Okay, my friend (we’ll call him Reg) was at a cafe at Confusion Corner, of course you know where that is. And he was sitting at a table next to Fred, and my friend was a social butterfly, and Fred, his modus operandi, as he’s trying to pick his next victim, he talks to anybody who’s around him.

“So he starts talking to Reg and giving him his story, that he has some aviation holdings, and that he’s a business man, and Reg was a really, really nice guy – he was First Nations, a wonderful person. And so Reg phoned me up after that, and said, oh yeah, I met this guy, Fred Devlin, and you know, I’d like you to meet him. So there was a period of time between when Reg met him, and then when I met Fred.

Me: “So, you met – did you come to Winnipeg to meet him?”

Dan: “Yes, I go to Winnipeg on a semi-regular basis because one of my kids lives there, and then one day, I met Fred.” (At that point though, Dan went off the record, saying he didn’t want to say what it was that he did for a living, saying “that’s going to open up a breadcrumb trail that I don’t want to happen.”)

Me: “All right, so you meet him, and then what happens?”

Dan: “So, we’re sitting there and Fred has this story, and he shows me his pictures… you know, some early pictures of him running around in limousines, and he also told me about his background doing his master’s degree at the University of Manitoba, and that he first started out doing some renovations or buying property on Corydon Avenue, and that’s where he made his first million or whatever, and he also uses options – real estate options.

“That’s his big thing. He really likes to have options on that stuff, and he was dressed rather street level, very casual, and told me that due to his his prominence in the business world and all the rest of that stuff, that he just decided that he was less of a target if he dressed in street clothes. So, anyway, he has his briefcase.

“He shows all of his stuff, and then we get in Reg’s car – some sort of red Japanese car, and we drove him (Devlin) back to his quote “penthouse,” which was on the Assiniboine or Red River – I always get those rivers mixed up and we dropped him off there, and, off he went, but he said that that day, he had purchased 201 Portage, the TD building, and he was just coming from that. So, he gives a (copy of) a story that I think it’s the one story that’s out there on Manitoba Business or something.” (That would be the story which was reproduced earlier in this story.) “And he says something about knowing Izzy Asper.”

Dan went on to explain how important the Izzy Asper connection was to Devlin’s “back story,” saying “he never would have made what he made, and he wouldn’t have his stories unless somehow he got involved with, Izzy Asper. And, I’ve got to go very slow as I think through all this stuff, okay?

“He said that he owns Harvard. Harvard is the company that owns 201 Portage Avenue, and I think the Hill family is behind that.

“And I remember, and this is part of the thing that’s weird about Fred is that he said about 201 Portage, he’s leasing out a lot of space to the Royal Bank. And then a couple months later, I see the Royal Bank sign on top of the TD building there.

“And so Fred steals other businesses’ ideas on what they’re doing, and he incorporates them into his back story. So when you’re looking around, and you’re listening to Fred mentioning Shindico and Sam Katz and you know, he’s actually stealing the identity of these people and weaving it into his own blanket of fantasy.

“And what else did we discuss that day? It was many, many years ago, but he talked about his ties to Israel and, you know, his financial relationships with Israel. And he’s a big supporter of Israel, even in his fantasy world.

“Um, that’s, that’s one of the core structures of how he operates – his dedication to the state of Israel, which comes up in all of his legal stuff and everything else. So, that’s how I met him. And then, you know – nothing happened.

“We just sort of kept in contact for maybe 12 years… just sort of talking on the phone. Occasionally, I would go out for coffee with him. One time, he talks about West Hawk Lake. He says he owns the marina there.”

At that point Dan went off the record again when he talked about his own career.

But Dan said he did have a project idea that involved doing something with a company in Israel. He broached that idea to Fred. At that point in the conversation Fred really began to ramble. The following excerpt is highly edited:

Fred came in and said, you know what? I really like what you’re doing. In 2021 I put down all my thoughts and I did a good analysis.

It’s actually very, very good stuff. I’m surprised even to read it today. And then Fred said, “Oh, I like that idea. I’m going to finance that.” And previous to this, you know, I heard lots of stuff about Fred and Xanadu capital and whoever that dude is in Luxembourg.

“So Fred can’t think of an idea. What he does is he’s parasitic. So he goes on other people’s ideas and then he contributes his financial fallacies to say ‘I can help this project move along”’and stuff like that.

“He preys on innocent people that he meets.

“That’s number one. He finds out what their hopes and dreams are and then tries to connect that way to finance them. So if you were going to build, you know, a gigantic physical publishing house, like they got in Steinbach, you know, Fred would say, ‘well, I can finance that for you.’

“And the other thing Fred does is that in order to infect like COVID other people, he goes for your connections. So that is his modus operandi. He can use your connections, talk to them, and then infect them also with his financial stuff.”

At that point the conversation took a totally different twist as Dan began to tell a story about going to a country that had been torn apart by civil war. As the story went on, he described meeting a “colonel” in that country who had just discovered “158 warehouses” full of weapons. Apparently the “colonel” was terrified by what he had discovered and he was afraid for his life over what he had uncovered.

I had no idea what the point of the story was and how it related to Fred – until Dan explained that Devlin had told him he had a very strong connection to Israel and that if Dan “ever saw anything that could affect the state of Israel, the security, to let him know. So I phoned him up and left a message. I said, I need two airplanes out of Malta now.

“The bottom line was that this could have been used against the States or Israel…

“So you’re never going to believe any of it, but I did see that. I did see that happen, but Fred never supplied me with the planes to get this colonel out so they could flip and deal with this stuff…

“But my thing was that, you know, Fred said he’s connected.

“I said, ‘give me some planes,’ which he didn’t. As a matter of fact, he said ‘don’t phone me ever again, because you terrified my wife…right? Because I left her a message. So that was my story.”

It was on another trip to Winnipeg that Dan said he had an opportunity to watch Devlin in action – doing his networking.

Dan described the scene: “Fred’s wandering around talking to all the executives with his briefcase.

“I’m talking to my buddies and he’s picked out all these people. And so he’s living, you know, the life of whatever his fantasy is in front of real people, telling them his story. So I’m watching this, you know, and he’s having these long conversations with people from head offices, stuff like that.

“And it looked to me that, you know, he’s doing his thing, making his connections. So, you know, he really thoroughly lives this kind of life and it’s you know, suspect I thought maybe he’s a little bit eccentric, like Howard Hughes.”

The conversation went on for some time, but not much else of interest emerged, As I’ve noted several times, Devlin’s background in aviation stood him in good stead when it came to trying to persuade various individuals that he was seriously interested in working with Israel Aerospace Industries. Dan Winthrop, especially, invested a great deal of time in a project that would have seen Israel Aerospace Industries convert jets for use as water bombers, spraying chemical retardants on forest fires.

I talk to an Israeli living in the US who was willing to help facilitate the plan to convert Israeli jets into jets that could fight forest fires

But, when it came to actually negotiating with someone who had ties to Israel Aerospace Industries it was someone I’ll call Avi who was ready to play a key role in the project.

When I spoke with Avi I promised him I wouldn’t disclose where he lived, what he did for a living, or who it was that he was going to connect to Devlin. Avi was deeply embarrassed at how much he believed Devlin story – and the extent to which he was prepared to help Devlin’s supposed plan through to fruition.

What he did disclose though, was that he had “a personal friend who works for the Israeli aviation and space industry.” He went so far as to say that “she’s in charge of the non-combat aviation side of it, and she’s in charge of North America.” (Bob Anderson referenced receiving an email from this woman, whom I’ve called Dalit Galon.)

Avi said “So, she contacted me and said she has a client who sent, I believe that his name is Dan, who sent his associates to Israel to meet with her and to purchase airplanes.”

I asked: “That would be Dan Winthrop – right?”

Avi: “Correct…And Dan flew and met with her, and he was under the impression that he’s dealing with a serious guy who wants to do good to the world as a foundation, and he is going to use those planes to fight fires – all over the world.”

I was a little confused as to the timeline when all this occurred because when I had spoken with Dan Winthrop, he had mentioned broaching an idea to Devlin in 2021 that Devlin said he really liked and wanted to put up money to see that idea go forward. But, when I spoke to Dan he said he didn’t want to get into specifics about that idea, beyond saying that Devlin steals other people’s ideas.

Now, however, after listening to Avi, I was beginning to understand just what Dan’s idea had been, so I said to Avi: “Let’s just go back. When is all this happening? What year are we talking about?”

Avi answered: “Everything is the last two years.” That would mean that it took some time for Dan to find someone in the Israeli aerospace industry who would give serious consideration to his proposal.

As Avi reiterated, “So she called me and says, this guy came, he’s representing a serious guy who has the means and wants to do good for the world, and wants to purchase those planes to fight those fires. That’s it.”

The woman Avi was talking to then asked her whether he could give Avi’s number to Devlin, noting that “he (Devlin) said he loves Israel like you, and would it be okay if I give him your number?” (I should note at this point that Avi is very well connected, both to Israeli businesspeople – and to people in the government, including some very high placed politicians.)

Devlin did call Avi, as Avi explained: “He would be calling me. I didn’t call him. He would call me twice a week, three times a week and just ask me personal questions, talk to me. And then he mentioned, if there’s anything that I can do to help Israel or to help something with Israel, let me know.”

At that point Avi said the conversations with Devlin shifted to discussing a documentary movie someone wanted to make about Jews helping Israel. He said he told Devlin about that idea for a movie and Devlin said he wanted to be involved in that, too.

Eventually, we returned to discussing Devlin’s plan to convert Israeli jets so that they could be used for firefighting. Avi told Devlin that he would help to set up some meetings for him with important Israeli officials, but at that point he asked me to stop recording.

Although he asked me to stop recording Avi didn’t say that he wanted to go off the record. What he said next really floored me. He said that he had actually gone so far as to set up a meeting between Devlin and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. To Avi’s great relief, however, Devlin bowed out of flying to Israel to meet the prime minister, so the meeting was cancelled long before it was supposed to take place. He added that he would have been terribly embarrassed had Netanyahu actually shown up for a meeting, only to find that Devlin hadn’t come.

Avi admitted that it was only quite recently that he realized Fred Devlin was totally delusional, but unlike some of the others whose stories I’ve related thus far, he didn’t spend nearly as much time talking to Devlin as others had. Or course, he realizes now that whatever time he did spend was totally wasted but, as you’re about to read, someone else was directly involved in aiding and abetting Devlin’s delusion by using his skills as a lawyer to help further the notion that Devlin was a quite legitimate businessman.

Coming next: The former lawyer who now deeply regrets the work he did for the con man

(JTA) — Almost exactly seven years after a presidential candidate stopped referring to “Pharisees” in response to allegations of antisemitism, another prominent political Pete has invoked the term.

And this time, it’s not just Jews but Christians who are finding the allusion offensive.

In 2019, it was Pete Buttigieg, then an Indiana mayor on the verge of declaring his Democratic presidential run, who compared an adversary to Pharisees, the sect of ancient Jews who are portrayed as hypocrites in the New Testament.

“There’s an awful lot about Pharisees in there,” Buttigieg told the Washington Post while speaking about then-Vice President Mike Pence, a Republican who frequently touted his Christian values. “And when you see someone, especially somebody who has such a dogmatic take on faith that they bring it into public life, being willing to attach themselves to this administration for the purposes of gaining power, it is alarmingly resonant with some New Testament themes, and not in a good way.”

 

 

Scholars of ancient Judaism and liberal Jewish leaders objected, saying that the term carried antisemitic implications even if not intended that way. Just days later, Buttigieg’s team announced he would no longer use the term, saying, “We appreciate the people who have reached out to educate us on this.”

Now, it’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who has derisively name-dropped the sect, understood to be precursors of modern rabbinic Judaism in their approach to Jewish practice.

Speaking to members of media on Thursday, Hegseth said he had thought of the Pharisees in church when his minister preached about a New Testament story describing Jesus entering a synagogue and healing someone sick.

“The Pharisees — the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time — they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,” he said. “But … even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.”

To Hegseth, the comparison was clear amid critical coverage of the U.S. war on Iran. “Our press is just like these Pharisees. Not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,” he said. “The Pharisees scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative.”

The invocation alarmed some Jews who heard it, according to posts on social media. They were responding with an awareness that in Christian tradition, the Pharisees have come to be thought of as “hypocrites, fools and a brood of vipers, full of extortion, greed, and iniquity,” as the Jewish scholar of early Jewish-Christian relations Amy-Jill Levine put it in a 2015 article arguing that Christian criticism of the Pharisees is antisemitic.

But this time, the comparison triggered a sharper outcry among some Christians and conservatives, because it likened Donald Trump and the U.S. military to Jesus at a time when the president has roiled some of his Christian base by posting an AI image of him as a Jesus- or God-like figure. (He said the image was depicting him as a doctor rather than Jesus, then deleted the picture.)

“Hegseth and Trump need to leave the religious jargon out of this,” wrote Peter Laffin, a senior editor at the conservative Washington Examiner, on X. “It is grotesque to compare the press to Pharisees, because it implies that they, Hegseth and Trump, are Jesus. “This is a hole they need to stop digging.”

The Jesus image closely followed Trump’s sparring this week with Pope Leo XIV. After the pope criticized the Iran war, Trump lambasted him on Truth Social, saying he should “get his act together” and implying that Trump played a role in his appointment. The pope rejected Trump’s criticism, adding fuel to a feud that has captivated Catholics around the world and even reshaped elements of Italian politics.

Soon after Hegseth’s speech, Pope Leo XIV tweeted again: “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”

Hegseth’s comments come as the Trump administration has injected overtly Christian ideas, references and practices into government activities. They were not his only comments citing scripture to draw criticism this week. He has also been mocked for quoting a biblical verse — Ezekiel 25:17 — using not the text found in Jewish or Christian texts but the one used by a character in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” to justify violence.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Pete Hegseth compares media to the Pharisees, ancient Jewish sect derided by Christians appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — The American Jewish Committee is calling on President Donald Trump to make the return of Americans in Iranian custody an “urgent national priority,” as his administration works to preserve a fragile ceasefire with Iran.

“The United States must be unequivocal: the wrongful detention or hostage-taking of Americans will not be accepted or sidelined,” the ADJ said in a statement issued jointly with other North American groups. “Our adversaries must recognize that harming Americans has lasting consequences, and Americans must be assured that their government will pursue their return with unwavering resolve.”

Along with the AJC, the call came from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and United Against Nuclear Iran. The co-founders of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum U.S., the American branch of the group that advocated for the Israeli hostages in Gaza, also signed on.

The groups celebrated the Trump administration’s record of negotiating hostage releases, writing that it had “already demonstrated an extraordinary record in recovering Americans from hostile regions, securing the release of over 70 Americans since January 2025, including every last hostage held in Gaza, living or deceased.”

The groups wrote, “The ability of the U.S. to lead in the recovery of not just Americans held in Gaza, but to secure the release of all hostages taken by Hamas showcases that the time to act decisively is now.”

Among those in captivity is Robert Levinson, a Jewish retired FBI special agent who went missing in Iran in 2007 during a business trip. Levinson’s family announced that he had died in Iranian custody in 2020.

“President Trump has brought more than 70 Americans home since January 2025,” Levinson’s family said in a statement. “We urge him to make Bob and every American held in Iran a priority in these talks — and to demand that the men responsible for our father’s abduction finally account for what they did. After 19 years, please help our family get the truth we need to move forward, and give our heroic father the justice he so rightfully deserves.”

The statements came as Trump announced that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, a condition that Iran has said was essential for any longer-term peace deal with the United States and Israel.

On Friday, Trump told Axios that he expected a permanent deal with Iran to be reached “in the next day or two,” and negotiators for the two countries are expected to meet over the coming days.

The potential deal, which has largely focused on suspending Iran’s nuclear activity, is not expected to include any provisions about the release of American hostages, which are often handled through separate negotiations. In 2023, former President Joe Biden negotiated the release of five American prisoners in Iran in exchange for releasing $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets.

There are signs that the United States is interested in securing the release of Americans in Iran. In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Iran as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” writing in a release at the time that “for decades, Iran has continued to cruelly detain innocent Americans, as well as citizens of other nations, to use as political leverage against other states.”

While it is unclear exactly how many American hostages are currently in Iranian captivity, United Against Nuclear Iran currently maintains a list of 13 individuals.

“The Iranian regime must stop taking hostages and release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran, steps that could end this designation and associated actions,” Rubio said. “We encourage it to do so.”

The Jewish and pro-Israel group are calling on the Trump administration to “make the safety, security, and freedom of Americans held captive in Iran a top priority and ensure this is integrated into broader strategic discussions regarding Iran.”

They added, “We stand ready to work with the Administration to bring every American held in Iran home safely and swiftly. There is no time to waste—the moral and strategic imperative is clear.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Jewish groups urge Trump to prioritize Americans held in Iran during ceasefire talks appeared first on The Forward.