The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) is combining its investigative efforts with those of prevention when fraudsters are rampant with seniors in boroughs located in the southwest of the city.
A little over a month after arresting eight suspects who were using a well-rehearsed scheme to seize the bank cards of elderly people and their passwords in the boroughs of Anjou, Montréal-Nord and Saint-Léonard, this problem has moved further west of the city.
“Following the arrests we made last month, which were more in the east of Montreal, we noted an upsurge in cases in the south-west of Montreal, especially with regard to LaSalle, Verdun and [le quartier] Ville-Émard”, in the Sud-Ouest borough, indicated in an interview with the To have to Thursday the commander of the economic crimes section of the SPVM, Steve Belzil.
Since the beginning of June, some “forty incidents” concerning such fraud have been reported to the SPVM in this sector of Montreal. A situation that prompted the police force to contact the Regroupement des organizations pour ains et ainés du sud-ouest de Montréal on Thursday to ask it to raise awareness among its members about this issue in the hope of stopping “the haemorrhage”, illustrates Mr. Belzil.
“We have to educate this clientele who are being caught,” notes the email, obtained by The dutywhich reports a “new wave” of fraud targeting seniors in this sector of the city.
In parallel with its efforts to raise awareness among seniors, the SPVM is continuing its investigation to arrest the suspects involved in this new series of frauds. “It is certain that there will be other arrests to come in the cases we are currently talking about,” assures the commander.
A well-crafted strategy
The fraudsters in question in the southwest of Montreal, whose number remains undetermined, use a tactic of the type “false representatives” to achieve their ends. For example, a fraudster calls an elderly person pretending to be an employee of a financial institution. He then makes the victim believe that a fraudulent transaction has been made on his bank card and that urgent action is needed to correct this situation.
“In an insistent tone, the suspect asks the victim to provide him with his personal identification number (PIN) and to insert his bank card inside an envelope. He explains that a postman will quickly pick up the envelope to bring it back to the financial institution. An accomplice in uniform then takes over and goes to the victim’s residence to retrieve the envelope and clear off, ”explains a press release issued Thursday by the SPVM.
Victims can then lose significant sums, notes Mr. Belzil. “In general, when they do this ploy [les fraudeurs] go to a counter to withdraw the maximum allowed withdrawal per day. And following these withdrawals, when they have reached the maximum, they will make purchases, ”explains the commander. “We can talk about several thousand dollars that they can fetch for one person. »