A structured organization of formidable efficiency

Very well organized, ingenious and unscrupulous.

Reading a 130-page judicial document filed in court in the cause of 24 individuals accused of fraud and subject to extradition requests to the United States, where they risk up to 40 years of imprisonment, lifts the veil on a structured and formidable efficiency organization.

The document summarizes the evidence raised against the suspects, the one of which is suspected of being the head of the network, Gareth West, that the authorities have not yet managed to arrest (see other text).

The proof is based, among other things, on the testimonies of a dozen suspects who have agreed to collaborate with the American police, on infiltration operations by double agents and on the content of more than 220 cell phones seized by the Sûreté du Québec during half a dozen searches made in the organization’s appeal centers, in Vaudreuil-Dorion, L’Île-Perrot and Poinrot, 2024.

“Messages from cell phones seized […] detail the meetings provided by West with its “directors”. The images of documents found in several of these phones show tables, graphs and calculation sheets detailing the performance of the organization as a whole and of each participant, as well as the distribution of the profits of the grandparent type scam accumulated by the organization, “writes an assistant prosecutor of the Vermont district in the document.

A photo found in a phone showed an opinion entitled “Improvements and updates in force from November 20, 2023”.

“To get a premium, you have to work for a 5-day week,” could read in the opinion, which specified that in the previous week, a record sum of $ 657,000 had been raised by the group of the same call center, the largest sum ever reached in a week. “Congratulations, give yourself a hand,” wrote the author of the opinion.

“We treat you with dignity”

The fraudsters skipped the American states in search of potential elderly victims. They called them, pretending to be their grandson or granddaughter who had just caught a pregnant woman, a politician or a police officer with her vehicle, and who needed a deposit of several thousand dollars to obtain his release.

The false little child transmitted the call to a false lawyer who used applications allowing him to modify the telephone number on the display, to call with an ephemeral phone number or to recall the deceitful criminalist.

“Thank you for calling on the law firm Palmer and Associates. Our lawyers are there to better serve you. We understand that you are innocent until proven otherwise and we treat you with dignity and respect. We specialize in criminal, commercial and real estate affairs. We also have a deposit service where our affiliated agents are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to get you out of the worst. Your consultation begins now. Please wait while I try to put you in touch, ”said a recorded message to the fraudster number.

The suspects pushed the audacity until reminding the same victim to ask him even more money, making him believe, for example, that the child that the alleged pregnant woman struck in the accident, and that the amount of the deposit had doubled.

This is what fraudsters called a recharge between them (reload).

In April 2023, a 70 -year -old woman from Virginia was cheated by $ 450,000 in this way, wondering about the money three times.

“It was the easiest, she was just on the porch while waiting for me,” an accomplice wrote a suspect who has become a police collaborator.

“Guy, my record is $ 150,000 in three days in a row,” replied the other.

“They hide them [milk] Like a cow. For history to be credible, they ask almost the same amount. Recharge is shit! When they catch the real fish, these bastards make a fortune, ”he adds.

The money delivered in unoccupied houses

In addition to the suspects that participated in calls, the organization was counting on collectors, who recovered money from the victims throughout the United States, and individuals who transformed the sums into cryptocurrency before transferring them to the leaders of the organization.

When the fraudsters feared that a suspicious victim could not call the police, they asked him to send the money by post, to a house for sale, found on a brokerage site and emptied of his occupants, in the city of the elderly. This is where the envelope was recovered.

According to the evidence, the pattern of the collectors was in Panamá. In April 2022 only, one of its collectors went to five different cities or states, traveling a total of 3,500 kilometers away.

Investigators also established in three weeks, between mid-May and June 4, 2024, a suspect used six phones to communicate with victims in seven states: South Carolina, Alabama, New Jersey, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

The fraudsters considered that one to three money collections in a week was a weak week, while more than eight collections represented a successful week.

All the players received a percentage of profits – the collectors kept 10 % of the sums they recovered – or a pay, and the American authorities estimate that around 70 % of the profits were sent to Canada.

The original imprint

The investigation started in 2022 in Vermont: a victim, who paid money to fraudsters twice, was walking near her home when she found, on the ground, a torn envelope in which she had deposited the money that an individual came to seek, the second time.

There was on the envelope the fingerprints of this individual who had been arrested for fraud of the grandparent type in Wisconsin. The man has unpacked everything to the investigators and he became the first collaborator of a list that will continue to lie down, until reaching a dozen names.

American police began to infiltrate suspects with double agents and communicated with the Sûreté du Québec after having noticed that the cradle of fraud was in the Montreal region.

Federal agents offered their services to recover and transport money, and suspects gave them 1.2 million in total on 14 occasions.

SQ infiltration agents notably received a sum of $ 192,000 from the hands of American police officers whom they gave to a suspect, before following him to one of the appeal centers.

They searched in trash bags deposited by suspects in front of the call centers and found shredded lists of victims.

On June 4, 2024, they searched in six places, including three appeal centers. They notably entered 220 cell phones and dozens of SIM cards.

Upon arrival of the police, one of the suspects fled through a window on the second floor but was caught up in a neighboring field.

Another hid in the shower of a bathroom.

On a phone based on a work table, a victim phone number had been composed but had not yet been activated.

In phones, investigators heard messages left by victims to a fraudster whom they believed to be a lawyer.

Another time, they read this text message from a victim sent to the phone of one of the suspects: “Who are you, and why do you pretend to be Mike!? »»

After analyzing the content of the phones, the investigators wonder if the crimes committed by this network have a link with the ball murder of an Uber chairman in Ohio, in March 2024, by an 81 -year -old man victim of a fraud of $ 12,000 in which he believed it involved.

To reach Daniel Renaud, compose 514 285-7000, post 4918, write to [email protected], or write to the postal address The press.