Maria Duval

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Maria Duval (born as Maria Carolina Gamba) was the woman at the origin of the Maria Duval psychic scam. Claiming to have psychic powers, she gained some fame before her name became associated with a vast and sophisticated mail scam. Gamba was born in Milan, Italy. First living in Callas, Var, then traveling extensively, "Maria Duval" was able to build a growing reputation as a psychic throughout the 1970s and 1980s, doing consultations and horoscope newspaper columns. She did media interviews and appeared on the cover of Vogue Paris. Old newspaper clippings she keeps in her home indicate she brushed shoulders with celebrities, although her claim to have psychically found Brigitte Bardot's lost dog was debunked by Bardot herself. Gamba had a son, named Antoine Palfroy, according to whom "Maria Duval" was not an alias, but rather the name she took on her second marriage. According to CNN, he believes "that there is no question his mother was a real psychic, and that she started out intent on helping others". Her son mentioned she once owned an industrial cleaning business which specialized in saunas and pools, as well as "several" clothing stores, the latter of which were where she started giving astrological consultations to friends. In the mid-1990s, Gamba sold the rights to the name Maria Duval to a group of scammers, who used the name to sell astrology charts.