When the cops came knocking for Danny Blanchard last January, he knew they were coming.
There was no way he couldn't.
Court was told the self-taught electronics wizard had set up nine surveillance cameras outside his Vancouver home, including one on a telephone pole.
Together, the cameras covered virtually every inch of his residence at 320 Quebec St. day and night.
Inside the home, police found not only the tools of a career fraudster but the paperwork too -- most of it locked away in a hidden room.
"Clearly this was an ongoing enterprise for him," Crown attorney Sheila Leinburd told court Wednesday.
"This was his living. This was his business."
Leinburd said Blanchard kept itemized records of some of his capers, listed under his different aliases. He also videotaped much of his criminal effort in what police likened to "taking notes."
There was extensive documentation of the bogus credit cards he'd taken out in other peoples' names.
Blanchard admitted to setting up numerous bank accounts using eight different aliases, which often involved going to exhaustive lengths including obtaining real driver's licences and fake baptism and marriage certificates as supporting documentation.
"He would even go and take the actual driving test under the alias," said Leinburd.
Other forged ID police seized included a media pass to the Indianapolis 500, a CTV pass getting him access to National Hockey League playoff games and ID showing him to be with the United States Secret Service.
bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca
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