The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) carried out on Tuesday the second phase of an operation targeting entities whose members are notably suspected of theft of telecommunications services, fraud and laundering the proceeds of crime.
In total, five people were arrested in connection with these offenses in Gatineau and Longueuil, as well as in Saint-Eustache and Brownsburg-Chatham, in the Laurentians.
The investigation by the SQ’s Criminal Assets Recovery Office (BRAC) had previously carried out searches in May 2023.
Police add that further arrests are expected.
The Sûreté du Québec points out that people who are subscribers and who would have been customers of entities presenting themselves as the companies AruboxTV and StockerIPTV, or who would have been in possession of a terminal of one of these entities, are not covered by the ongoing criminal investigation.
However, these terminals would allow telecommunications services to be fraudulently obtained. Possession and use of such a device may therefore constitute offenses under the Criminal Code.
Subscribers are therefore invited by the police to return their terminal to an official drop-off point of the Quebec Electronic Products Recycling Program.