A Toronto couple is facing charges after allegedly defrauding hundreds of Canadians out of millions of dollars.
The RCMP alleged in a news release on Thursday that the pair used technology to hide their phone number in order to pose as bank, government or police employees and trick people into handing over money.
Police said the suspects, who are 29 and 31, used a spoofing website to make phone calls while displaying a false caller ID.
The RCMP alleged that the two people were among the “most active” subscribers to iSpoof.cc, a website that was used by subscribers around the world to make unauthorized phone calls while displaying a caller ID falsely indicating that they were legitimate callers. The website had as many as 38,000 subscribers.
“This particular technology allowed criminals to purchase a subscription in order to use the service to impersonate trusted corporations,” RCMP said in the release.
RCMP said they searched the couple’s home and seized a “trove” of items, including electronic devices.
Police said at least 570 people were defrauded, though that number may increase after the devices seized in the search are analyzed.
According to the RCMP, the couple allegedly used a variety of different spoofing, phishing and smishing schemes to target their victims.
The pair have been charged with fraud, unauthorized use of a computer, laundering the proceeds of crime, unauthorized possession of credit card data and possessing the proceeds of crime.
The accused were arrested on Wednesday and remanded to Maplehurst Correctional Complex and Vanier Centre for Women and will appear remotely in a Toronto courtroom on Feb. 21.
Spoofing allegedly used on a ‘global scale,’ RCMP says
Insp. Lina Dabit, the officer in charge of the Cybercrime Investigative Team Toronto for Ontario RCMP, said at a news conference on Thursday that RCMP officers arrested the two after receiving information from the London Metropolitan Police in the U.K. as part of Operation Elaborate, an investigation involving several police forces.
Operation Elaborate was led by the London Metropolitan Police with the help of Dutch National Police and Europol.
The RCMP alleges that the two were using spoofing technology “on a global scale,” Dabit said.
“Evidence indicates that the scale of their operation was enormous,” Dabit said at a news conference on Thursday. “We allege that these individuals are responsible for millions of dollars lost to victims across Canada.”
“Further, we suspect that nearly every bank in Canada has been a victim of these suspects as well as many of their clients.”
Dabit said cybercriminals use spoofing to mislead victims to convince them that they are speaking with someone they can trust.
“This will often lead to victims letting their guard down and divulging sensitive information.”
Last year, Canadians lost $638 million to fraud, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
“These losses have had and continue to have devastating impacts on Canadian families who may end losing a lifetime of savings,” Dabit said.
#Toronto #couple #charged #defrauding #hundreds #Canadians #millions #dollars #police
Leave a Reply