Nearly 37,000 Quebecers were victims of fraud in 2023, an increase of 15% in two years, according to the Association of Police Directors (ADPQ).
The ADPQ invited the media to a press conference Wednesday morning at the headquarters of the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) to report “a worrying increase” in fraud in Quebec.
Montreal, Montérégie and the Capitale-Nationale are the regions where fraudsters have caused the most victims.
But it was Laval and Mauricie which experienced the greatest increase in cases of fraud, with 20%.
“The most frequent frauds in Quebec are those involving the fraudulent use of service cards, computers and identity theft” and “these categories include in particular frauds involving false representatives, grandparent type frauds and love fraud,” said Patrick Bélanger, of the ADPQ.
“Every time you use your credit card, every time you answer a phone call, every time you check your emails, you potentially expose yourself to scams that are increasingly sophisticated,” added Mr. Bélanger , who is also police chief of the Longueuil agglomeration.
According to data compiled by the ADPQ, 36,898 frauds were declared and recorded by police services in Quebec in 2023, compared to 35,116 in 2022 and 32,032 in 2021.
The tip of the iceberg
But these data “are very conservative”, according to Patrick Bélanger, because “the data collection methodology can differ from one police service to another”, but above all because “many victims prefer not to report, too often by fear of judgment or shame” or “because the sums stolen are not substantial”.
The dozens of frauds reported each year are therefore, according to him, only “the tip of the iceberg”.
Police officers are also noticing more and more fraud committed with the help of artificial intelligence.
“It now happens on occasion that the voice is falsified” and “artificial intelligence makes it possible to clone the voice of the grandson who would call his grandparents to tell them that he is in trouble and that he has need money,” explained Patrick Bélanger.
The ADPQ spokesperson added that “the police are putting a lot of effort” into trying to counter this new phenomenon.
According to the ADPQ, certain frauds are the work of members of organized crime.
“Investigations have revealed that certain members of criminal groups were particularly involved in false representative fraud,” said Patrick Bélanger.
“There are arrests for fraud every week,” said the director of investigations into financial crimes and cybercrime at the SQ, Isabelle Boudreault.
The ADPQ spokesperson “strongly encourages Quebecers to denounce the fraud” of which they are victims.
“Rest assured that you will not be judged, but rather accompanied by our law enforcement,” said Patrick Bélanger.
3 million dollars since the beginning of the year
Over a period of three months in 2024, i.e. from 1er January to March 31, Quebecers declared losses of nearly 3 million dollars while the amount was 123 million across the country.
The Association of Police Directors stressed that even if romance frauds are not among the most reported, the amounts lost by victims of this type of crime “are alarming”.
In Quebec, 142 people have reported being victims of love fraud since the start of 2024 and they are believed to have lost $800,000.
In Canada, the number of victims would be 217 for the same period and the amounts lost would reach 9.6 million.
The ADPQ and the Desjardins Movement collaborated on the design of a video capsule which was posted online on Tuesday to raise public awareness of different types of fraud.