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05/03/2024
Canadian old Chinese lady was defrauded of $7.5 million! After months of careful planning, two waves of scammers appeared in turn...
[Canada Metropolis Network] An old Chinese lady in Greater Vancouver suffered a huge cryptocurrency investment scam and suffered heavy losses. She was defrauded of more than 7.5 million Canadian dollars by two waves of scammers. Burnaby police say this is the largest amount of money reported to them in history.
Burnaby RCMP said this elaborate scam lasted for several months. After the elderly victim was defrauded of all his money, he was defrauded a second time.
The victim told the police that in the spring of 2022, someone contacted her for the first time through a Chinese text message and asked about her "personal business history", personal finances and details. Police said the elderly man who was deceived spoke Mandarin.
Over the next few months, the scammers continued to communicate with the victims via phone calls, text messages, emails and chat apps in an effort to gain the elderly's trust, ultimately convincing the victims to invest millions of Canadian dollars through online cryptocurrency transactions.
Initially the victim was able to check her investment balance through an app that mimicked a legitimate cryptocurrency trading platform.
But later she found that she could not withdraw money and the people she contacted disappeared.
The scammer then pretended to be someone who could help her again, claiming that he could help her get back the money she had been defrauded from, while threatening her to transfer more money.
The victim was pressured and threatened throughout the scam into investing more, but unfortunately, this was also a scam, the RCMP said.
Philip Ho, spokesman for the Burnaby Economic Crime Unit, said the police are calling on all people to pay attention to the news to prevent themselves or their relatives and friends from being defrauded. He wrote in the statement: "The scammers spent months deceiving the elderly woman into believing that these were legitimate investments in order to achieve their goals. Victims who fell into the scam must report it to the police so that we can carry out the investigation. Investigate and help victims because once they are defrauded, they are at a higher risk of being victimized again.”
He said police were sharing details of the case to prevent others from falling victim to similar scams.
Fraudsters often change tactics, He said in a statement. "They were able to tailor their scam to this victim, specifically using information about her career and business history to first build trust and friendship."
The RCMP said they will continue to investigate and work with partners such as the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center to investigate the "digital footprint" of the transactions.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Center offers some tips on how to avoid falling victim to scams and scams.
