He thought he'd sold his Rolex for $15K. Sleight of hand left him with coupons instead

Laurent Mattel recalls his legs turning to jelly when he peered inside an envelope meant to be holding $15,000 and saw a bundle of flyer clippings instead.

Hours earlier, he had sold his Rolex Datejust 41 to a man at his home in Blainville, Que., a suburb north of Montreal. 

The man known as Marius, at least according to the Facebook profile which would be deactivated shortly after the transaction, had responded to Mattel's ad for the luxury watch on Facebook Marketplace. 

"He told me he wanted to buy my watch to treat his wife. I didn't suspect a thing," Mattel said in an interview with Radio-Canada's La Facture about his experience back in November. 

Once in the kitchen, Mattel recalls Marius placing a black pouch on the counter and pulling out a silver envelope with a rubber band around it. He remembers Marius removing the rubber band and handing him the envelope. 

"He lets me take out the money and he takes back the envelope. I count out $15,000 in $100 bills. I even make little bundles of $1,000 on the counter," Mattel said.

"Then [Marius] picks up the money and puts it back in the envelope. He puts the rubber band back around the envelope and hands it to me."

With a $100 bill still visible through the clear window of the envelope, Mattel says he handed the man his Rolex and, after exchanging a few pleasantries, Marius left. 

A little while later, Mattel decided to open the envelope again. This time, he realized, it'd been stuffed with a bunch of coupons. 

"I came undone. I really felt the heat, thinking to myself, 'I've been had,'" he said. 

Mattel had just become the latest victim of a criminal magician or magicians who allegedly committed other similar thefts in the greater Montreal area, Radio-Canada's investigation has found. 

The Blainville police, with whom Mattel filed a complaint, would not comment on the case.

So how did the thief manage to leave with Mattel's watch and the $15,000? Montreal magician John Vincelli showed CBC News how combining distraction with sleight of hand "is really simple to do."

Vincelli puts his bag on the table, pulls an envelope from it and slides a rubber band off the envelope before handing it over. The seller counts the money in the envelope.