The police put an end Thursday morning to the criminal activities of a group of unscrupulous fraudsters who did not hesitate to rob the most vulnerable in our society of all their savings by posing as false bank representatives.
In total, 28 suspects were arrested or encountered by the police after receiving a visit from the police early in the morning.
No less than 22 searches were still in progress as of mid-morning in residences in Montreal, Laval, Sherbrooke, Brossard, Saint-Lin–Laurentides, Saint-Canut, Sainte-Thérèse, Terrebonne, Joliette, as well as in the Toronto area.
Search in a condo tower on Boulevard du Saint-Laurent, in Brossard.
MAXIME DELAND/AGENCE QMI
The “main players” in this vast network of fraudsters were targeted as part of this large-scale operation.
The group of scammers used the “false representative fraud” scheme to succeed in extracting large sums of money from their victims, mainly elderly people living not only in Quebec, but also elsewhere in Canada.
The authorities have so far managed to link the criminal organization to more than 140,000 fraudulent calls of this type since November 2023, a daily average of more than 425 calls.
MAXIME DELAND/AGENCE QMI
The police believe that the sums lost by the victims who fell into the trap easily amount to several hundred thousand dollars, or even more than a million dollars.
Along with “grandparent” type fraud, “false representative” fraud is extremely popular with scammers.
The way of proceeding is essentially always the same: an individual telephones the residence of his victim, very often an elderly person, pretending to be an employee of a banking institution.
Search of a residential building in Toronto.
COURTESY PHOTO
The false representative informs his victim that fraud has just been detected in his bank account and that to resolve the problem, he must give his bank card as well as his personal identification number (PIN) to one of her colleagues who will pick her up directly from her home.
The fraudsters then use their victims’ cards to empty their accounts.
Some victims lost their life savings.
Thursday’s operation, in which more than 250 police officers from the Sûreté du Québec, the Montreal, Longueuil and Toronto police participated, was the result of an investigation begun in the fall of 2023.
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