Conman Ric Blum’s 92-year-old victim: ‘I hope he suffers’

After conman Ric Blum connived is way into her home, Andree Flamme went right to the top but was never contacted by police. She tells her story for the first time.

Andree Flamme, 92, and her daughter Agnes Plume.

An elderly widow who hasn’t been contacted by police has told of being ripped off by an inter­national conman who is now central to inquiries into a Queensland teacher’s mystery disappearance.

Andree Flamme, 92, says serial fraudster Ric Blum offered to value her late husband’s rare gold and silver coins, conniving his way into staying at her Brussels home for 10 days, then fled with the collection when she went to the shops.

The theft was raised at an inquest into the suspected death of Marion Barter – who vanished after an affair with Mr Blum – because detectives found a letter Ms Flamme and her family wrote to the Queensland governor in 2010.

But Ms Flamme and her daughter Agnes Plume say Australian police have never been in touch, despite them being easily found this week, and Mr Blum has never been charged over the swindle.

Mr Blum lied at the ongoing NSW inquest into Barter’s disappearance when he claimed he returned the coins, the pair said.

He was also lying when he gave evidence that Ms Flamme had dementia, was in a wheelchair and “couldn’t put two words together” when he took the coins in 2010, they said.

Ms Flamme said she was still healthy more than a decade later, had never been in a wheelchair and didn’t have dementia.

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“I think he’s the one who has Alzheimer’s because he’s obviously forgotten a lot of things,” Ms Flamme told The Weekend Australian from her current home in Portugal.

Barter, a Gold Coast mother-of-two and ex-wife of soccer legend Johnny Warren, vanished in 1997, aged 51. She had recently had a secret relationship with Mr Blum, who denies any involvement in her disappearance.

A series of other women have accused him of deceiving and stealing from them, which he also denies.

Now 83 and living at Ballina in northern NSW, the Belgian-born Mr Blum was able to obtain Australian citizenship despite being jailed in France for four years for fraud.

Immigration officials were considering charging him with obtaining his citizenship fraudulently – but he was able to stay, gaining nine Australian passports in seven different names, while living for decades on a taxpayer-funded disability pension.

There is now a public push to strip him of his citizenship, while the new evidence from Ms Flamme could potentially further delay the inquest findings, originally due last November.

Ms Plume said the family had been unaware of the inquest or any recent publicity about Mr Blum. “But if I have to get on a plane to Australia to help with the case, I’m there,” she said.

Marion Barter.

Ric Blum. Picture: Tessa Flemming

Ms Flamme’s family knew Mr Blum as Frederick De Hedervary and called him “the Australian”.

He claimed he had a multimillion-dollar mansion in Australia and a Porsche. They now say they should have been more suspicious about his claims when, instead of checking into a hotel, he asked to stay with Ms Flamme while valuing her coins on a Brussels visit.

Mr Blum had previously befriended the family after hanging out at the Royal Library of Belgium, where Ms Flamme’s son-in-law worked.

Ms Flamme’s husband Jacques Plume died in October 2009.

He had built up over his lifetime a collection of very valuable gold and silver coins, including by investing money from the sale of a house he inherited. The prized collection was kept in a safety deposit box at the bank, until Mr Blum offered to value them.

He estimated they were worth about €20,000, but the family believe the real value was much more than that.

In June 2010, Ms Flamme left her home for about half an hour, and returned to find Mr Blum and the coins gone. She’d gone out to get him prawns he’d requested.

“He left a note on the table, saying that he would meet us at the antiques store two days later to sell the items, but he never showed,” Ms Plume said.

“In terms of sentimental value, they really meant a lot to us. He really abused the trust of a family who weren’t particularly well-off to begin with.”

Documents cataloguing and authenticating the coins had been stolen, and her husband’s meticulous notes about the coins were found torn to shreds.

The family never suspected Mr Blum could betray them, and police in Belgium said their lack of documentation made it hard to prove what they owned.

Mr Blum also made off with Ms Plume’s valuable gold jewellery, passed down to her from her grandmother and mother-in-law.

“He offered to value them for me. So he came to my home once to have a look at the pieces, and he took them with him back to my mother’s house where he was staying to properly value them,” she said.

At the inquest, Mr Blum produced a receipt he said proved he sent the coins back by registered post from Miami on the Gold Coast, where he was living at the time.

Ms Plume said he did send a package of coins, but it contained only a fraction of what he’d stolen and none of the valuable items.

The letter of reply on behalf of the Queensland Governor.

“My mum wasn’t deranged, and she isn’t until this day. She’s still on the ball, and she can walk just fine,” she said.

Ms Flamme said she had been left with a deep sadness and lost trust in people. She still can’t ­believe the speed of the theft.

“I went to the shop just down the road, I wasn’t even gone that long,” she said.

“And when I got back, everything was gone. My God, I hope he suffers.”

Ms Flamme’s 2010 letter to then Queensland governor Penelope Wensley said Mr Blum was wanted by Belgian police and questioned how he was able to live in Australia and use the country as a shield.

The governor’s official secretary said in a letter of reply retained by the family that their concerns had been noted.