The multimillionaire ex-wife of a Swedish tycoon has lost a large part of her fortune to a phony clairvoyant in exchange for a blue glass bottle of "holy water" and some pigeon feathers.
The wealthy woman was looking for advice about how to court a new love interest when she contacted the so-called soothsayer through a newspaper advertisement, reports the Expressen newspaper.
While the woman's first conversation cost only a modest 400 kronor ($50), the price of the fortune teller's advice went up considerably thereafter: the second session set the well-heeled woman back a whopping 25,000 kronor.
The mind reader then convinced the woman to hand over 200,000 kronor for a trip to "the holy land" so the psychic could make offerings to the spirit world.
In 2003, the millionaire forked over another 175,000 kronor and in return received a glass spray bottle filled with "holy water" and a handful of pigeon feathers. Spraying the holy water around her house, she was told, would protect her from bad luck.
All told, the clairvoyant made off with around 3.2 million kronor.
"In order to pay, she sold stock, life insurance, mortgaged her apartment, and took out loans," said public prosecutor Åke Olsson to Expressen.
An arrest warrant has been issued for the fraudulent fortune teller, who investigators say is a 46-year-old Finnish citizen with an address in western Stockholm.
According to police records, she has a history of traffic violations and is now awaiting trial on charges of serious fraud and an alternative charge of serious extortion.
"This is very sensitive, as you can probably imagine," the millionaire woman told Expressen, not wanting to comment further on the matter.
And she isn't the only victim to be hoodwinked by the cunning clairvoyant.
Wheelchair-bound Ursula Engstrand, a 72-year-old woman from Gävle in eastern Sweden, had her house repossessed because of the hundreds of thousands of kronor in debt she accumulated at the behest of the psychic.
