A young Quebec scammer hidden in Europe explains the secrets of his telephone fraud

A young Quebec fraudster who plays hide and seek with Interpol wants to return to Quebec to face justice and avoid being locked up in an Albanian prison, where he risks death.

Our Investigation Office managed to find Alex (fictitious first name) in Portugal. On the table in front of us, he reveals his false identities. “I can become whoever you want,” he says, showing us his Spanish, French and Portuguese driving licenses.

“The important thing is attitude. It’s the way you behave,” he assures us, blending into the sea of ​​tourists in the coastal village of Nazaré, Portugal.

The story of this young man who grew up in the Montreal borough of Saint-Laurent is worthy of a Hollywood film. It is presented during the JE show, which will be rebroadcast on LCN, today and tomorrow at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Four identities

“I rent the houses, rents and everything with French documents. If I take a train or withdraw money, I’m Polish. If I drive or rent a car, I am Canadian. My name is different on Canadian papers, of course. I have four of them [identités]I know the names and dates by heart,” he says rebelliously.

If Alex is hiding in Europe today, it is because Interpol has issued a wanted notice against him on behalf of the Albanian justice system. In this Balkan country, he committed a scam in Forex, the foreign currency market. He also took the opportunity to cheat several Quebecers during his criminal career.

At the beginning of the 2010s, after around ten convictions in Canada, notably for thefts, young Alex was recruited by a member of the Montreal Israeli underworld to work in an online casino in Tel Aviv, in Israel.

Already facing charges in a fraud case that occurred in Ontario, he decided to accept the offer and flee Canadian justice.

Foreign currencies

Alex gets noticed in Israel and is offered to work in Albania in call centers specializing in Forex scams. Forex involves speculating on foreign currencies in the hope that they will increase in value. The problem is that investors never get their money back.

“If the guy invested $100,000, we’ll give him $50,000 and make him believe that it’s money he won. That’s the technique, we give him back half of his money to make him believe that he has won in order to make him take out the whole amount again. And it goes round and round. Like a sponge… you soak in water, you crush, you crush and then it’s dry… you throw it away and move on to the next one,” he says.

Alex worked in the Albanian capital, Tirana, for a company linked to the Milton group, an international criminal organization exposed by an investigation by the BBC, the British public media.

According to the BBC, the Milton group is suspected of fraud worth more than a billion euros and Alex worked for one of its satellite companies in Albania. This firm was directly linked to former Albanian Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili, on the run since he was accused of having embezzled more than $5 million in public money.

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Trapped

In 2018, the young man’s partners asked him to give them his passport so that the authorities could issue a work visa. Months pass and we refuse to give it back to him.

“One day someone told me: ‘Shut your mouth if you don’t want to take a bullet and do your job.’ The tone has changed completely. People even started showing me weapons. I spent about 11 months there before escaping.”

His former business partners in Albania would then have used all their political weight to get the court to file fraud charges against him for a scooter case that he borrowed and did not return.

This is what will sink the young crook. Albania contacted Interpol, which issued a wanted notice against him.

“I’m fired crazy”

Alex would be arrested in Belarus, Ukraine and, ultimately, Poland, where he was imprisoned and released until a judge ruled that he would be handed over to Albanian authorities.

“I went crazy,” he says. I would rather commit suicide and let myself bleed out than go to Albania to die. I picked up my passport. I called friends from Marseille and they came to pick me up.”

After crossing a bridge which separates Poland from Germany, the young fugitive vanishes into thin air.

He wants to return to Quebec

The young crook Alex wants to turn himself in to the Canadian authorities for an old fraud story, but the latter refuse to bring him back to the country.

The JE show has in hand dozens of pages of his correspondence with the Canadian embassies in Warsaw, Lisbon, Rome and Paris, where he asked to become a prisoner.

If he flies to Canada, the wanted notice against him risks sending him to an Albanian jail. “He wants to come back and face justice in these cases,” according to his lawyer, Me Charles Montpetit.

Imprisonment

The Montreal lawyer even claims to have negotiated an agreement with the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions for the accusation, in Quebec, of the young crook. “The negotiations resulted in a sentence. And I will even go further, without embarrassment, by saying that we are talking about a term of imprisonment,” assures Me Montpetit.

“It’s not as if by returning to Montreal I intend to go to [la rue] Saint-Laurent party… no! I’m going to prison and I know it, I want to do my time,” assures Alex.

He showed us a response that he said he received from the Canadian consulate in Albania, and in which we can read in particular this:

“If a Canadian breaks the law in another country, that person is subject to that country’s justice system. Global Affairs Canada cannot protect Canadians from the consequences of their actions, nor override the decisions of local authorities.”

In response to our questions, Global Affairs Canada was unable to tell us precisely why it is refusing the fraudster’s surrender.

In an email, spokesperson Charlotte MacLeod said that “the Government of Canada is aware of information that a Canadian citizen is wanted in Albania.” She added that “consular officers remain ready to provide consular assistance,” but could not release any further information “for confidentiality reasons.”

The Forex scam, a trap to avoid

Investing in foreign currencies, called Forex, is a perfectly legitimate business, except when it’s offered to you over the phone by young fraudsters like Alex.

Whether it’s cryptocurrency, stocks or currencies, the money that Quebecers give to a broker that is not registered with the Quebec Financial Markets Authority can be lost the minute it is disbursed.

“[L’investisseur] will never find him again, assures Alex. The money goes into someone else’s account and it gets separated.”

Now crypto

Professor specializing in economic crime Masarah Paquet-Clouston points out that this type of fraud has evolved in recent years.

“We’re going to have binary stocks, we’re also going to have done Forex, then today, it’s crypto. But in all cases, there was never any investment. This money will have been given into an account for fraudsters who will have spent it,” she describes.

The perfect scammer’s guide

Alex gave us the documents used by fraudsters like him to extract money from their victims. It’s a real working order called Gold Script which takes about twenty pages and which dictates to the scammer what he must say on the phone to lure future customers.

These ready-made phrases are specially formulated to put pressure on the investor. Stock market specialist François Joly-Dubois believes that these arguments resemble those of a “used car seller who wants to make a good profit.”

What the fraudster should say

1. It’s not something you want to do, it’s something you have a duty to do for yourself.
2. Give me 1% of your trust and I’ll go get the other 99%.
3. Work with me, it will be the best decision of your life.
4. All I ask is a small amount. In the future, you will want to invest a lot more.
5. If this stock only takes half its promised value, we’re going to be rich.
6. In a year, you will entrust me with your entire portfolio.
7. This investment is a major league home run.
8. You don’t want to trust me with your money because you barely know me? When you flew, did you know the pilot?