January 9, 2024. Around 10 a.m., the phone rings at Raymond Lauzon’s house, who has just returned home from another shift on a cold winter night.
“Daddy, it’s me! I was just involved in an accident. I was texting while driving, I injured someone and the police seized my phone. My lawyer will call you in half an hour,” the caller tells Mr. Lauzon, who recognizes his daughter’s voice and becomes worried.
The trap is set. Several calls follow from the pseudo-lawyer, who asks the sixty-year-old for $5,000 to pay the bail that will allow his daughter to obtain her provisional release.
Mr. Lauzon suggests going to pay it himself at the Longueuil courthouse. “Impossible,” the fraudster replies, exploiting a real assault committed against an interpreter at the courthouse that same day to make Mr. Lauzon believe that the building is inaccessible.
Around 5 p.m., a fake “clerk” went to Mr. Lauzon’s house to collect the envelope containing the sum withdrawn earlier by the victim from his bank. She disappeared as quickly as she had arrived.
Mr. Lauzon’s fictional daughter calls him one last time to thank him, taking care to tell him not to come see her, because his misadventure has exhausted her and she wants to go to bed.
The next day, Mr. Lauzon meets his daughter, the real one, at work. “And then, the accident?” he asks her.
“What accident?” his daughter replies.
Mr. Lauzon understands that he has been abused and that his hard-earned $5,000 has gone up in smoke.
There are thousands of stories like Mr. Lauzon’s, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wasted savings
In 2020 and 2021, over a two-year period, the Economic Crimes Section of the Montreal Police Department (SPVM) opened 69 false representative fraud cases targeting seniors. In 2023 alone, it opened 503, seven times more (+629%) in two years.
In 2022, elderly people (over 65 years old) represented 16% of victims of all cases opened in the section. A year later, this proportion rose to 20%, one in five victims.
In Laval, too, there are numerous cases of fraud each year involving victims over 65 years old.
To fool an elderly person, fraudsters will rely on pressure, a sense of urgency, a lack of choice, a heartstrings, fear, etc. It is much easier to take on an elderly person, who is not proficient in technology, than a person like you and me. They are easy prey.
Gabrielle Ferland, criminal investigation inspector for the Laval Police Department (SPL)
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Inspector Gabrielle Ferland, from the Laval Police Department
The amounts stolen in false representative and grandparent frauds range from $1,000 to $30,000, she said.
Most of the time, these amounts will never be recovered since most financial institutions will not reimburse a victim who has provided their personal information to the fraudsters in good faith.
“For some of them, it’s their life savings that are being squandered,” laments the commander of the SPVM’s Economic Crimes Section, Steve Belzil.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Steve Belzil, commander of the SPVM Economic Crimes Section
Financial and psychological impacts
“It’s a disgusting crime, taking advantage of the world like that. People who work by the sweat of their brow,” fumes Mr. Lauzon.
Mr. Lauzon decided to tell his story openly to help prevent these crimes.
Because of this, I’ve been late paying my taxes and have had to pay interest. I have to delay my retirement. I’m turning 70 in May and I’m still working. It’ll be at least another year before I’m able to clear out my car.
Raymond Lauzon, victim of fraud
“A vulnerable person who is a victim of fraud may then suffer from insomnia, feel fear and a lot of anxiety,” says Detective Lieutenant Isabelle Côté of the SPL, a specialist in fraud and vehicle theft.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Lieutenant Detective Isabelle Côté, of the Laval Police Department
“When fraudsters call victims, they pretend to be relatives, but also lawyers, police officers or bank employees. Subsequently, [les victimes] are very suspicious. When you call them, they don’t answer anymore. There is a general loss of trust in the network that is supposed to support them. We then find ourselves having obstacles in our way because they have become very suspicious,” she describes.
A glimmer of hope in 2024
The explosion in the number of frauds against seniors observed since the pandemic appears set to decrease in 2024, according to statistics from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
This trend follows several police raids.
Last spring, the Ontario Provincial Police, along with several police forces – including the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the SPVM – arrested around fifteen suspected grandparent-type fraudsters in Montreal, following an investigation called Sharp.
The SQ also dismantled a network of fraudsters linked to the mafia last year as part of a major investigation called Partnership. Such networks extend beyond Quebec and victimize seniors as far away as the United States. “Organized crime makes money from this. It protects the call centres and employees, and manages the recovery of the money,” says Chief Inspector Michel Patenaude, head of criminal investigations at the Sûreté du Québec.
“It’s appalling how they make money. It’s a priority for us because organized crime is getting rich and creating victims that we have to take care of,” continued Mr. Patenaude.
In 2022 and 2023, SPVM Economic Crimes investigators, often in collaboration with neighborhood stations, made 30 arrests.
As recently as Friday, the SPVM issued a call for vigilance against fraudsters who particularly target seniors and who pose as contractors, offer supposedly urgent work and ask for deposits of several thousand dollars.
Taxi and cryptocurrency
Investigators began seeing elderly victims paying the scammers in cryptocurrency, following their instructions.
They have also faced cases where victims have boarded the fraudsters’ vehicles, who then took them to their financial institution to make withdrawals.
Mr. Lauzon, for his part, is certain that his daughter’s voice was imitated.
Are fraudsters going so far as to use artificial intelligence (AI) to imitate the voices of their victims’ parents?
“The fraudsters operate almost like a dispatch service. It’s one call after another. I can’t see why they would put so much effort into imitating a voice for sums of $3, $4, or $5,000 when they could succeed on the next call. We’re not there yet with artificial intelligence, but we’re starting to prepare,” concludes Inspector Gabrielle Ferland of the SPL.
Fraudsters are ingenious and voracious. On Friday, a week after granting us this interview, Mr. Lauzon received another call from “his daughter” who had once again been involved in an accident. This time, he didn’t fall for it.
With the collaboration of Charles-Éric Blais-Poulin, investigation team of The Press
To contact Daniel Renaud, dial 514 280-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.
Organized fraud targeting the elderly
False representative fraud
A fraudster calls the victim, pretending to be a representative of their financial institution, tells them that their debit or credit card has been cloned and asks them to put it in an envelope after writing their personal identification number (PIN) on the back.
He sends an accomplice – sometimes disguised as a postman – to collect the envelope from the home of the defrauded person and a short time passes before withdrawals and/or purchases are made with the fraudulently obtained card.
Grandparent-type telemarketing fraud
Fraudsters can, among other things, identify a street and simply search the list of residents on that street for a telephone number whose subscriber has an older first name.
They then call this subscriber pretending to be one of his grandchildren and extort money using false reasons.
In another modus operandi, men or women who have, for example, accumulated gambling or drug debts, or who are involved in prostitution, are recruited by organised crime.
From a mobile call centre, to confuse the police, they call their victims, often in the rest of Canada or the United States, always to complicate police investigations, pretend to be a granddaughter or grandson arrested after a collision and detained, and ask for hundreds or thousands of dollars to obtain their release.