A fraud victim spotted his old nemesis back at work and rushed to The Citizen to tell the public what to watch out for.
He went to the police as well, but is unsure if they are involved in investigating the perpetrators.
The situation is complex and hard to catch in the act, he explained.
The victim did not wish his name to be used, due to safety concerns, so we shall call him Jones in this report. Jones confessed that he was bilked for tens of thousands of dollars in 2003 the first time the scam came calling, and he also confessed that he was breaking the law himself at the time.
"For me, it is time to stop these people or there will be another victim," said Jones.
The scam works like this: the crooks introduce themselves as talented counterfeiters. If you bring them real $50 bills, they will ink them up and run them through their special process, spitting out perfect copies. They will give you your original bills back again, a matching set of counterfeit bills (thus doubling your money) and keep a counterfeit set for themselves. The more cash you bring them, the bigger the batch they can do.
The only problem is, they don't make copies at all. They show you real bills, perhaps even give you a couple to go out and test to prove how easily they work at local businesses. Their trick is, the "fake" bills are real bills so they will never arouse suspicions. The crooks never made any counterfeit money at all. They took your real bills, and then they disappear with it, never to return.
Jones couldn't believe it when he was approached by a couple of new people, almost 10 years after the original fraud, and tried to do it to him again.
"It was a totally different couple of guys this time, but the scam was the same, they are just the latest members of the same crew," he said.
Jones said the scam originates with a group of black, French-speaking West Africans living in Canada. He is one of those himself which is why, he thinks, the scammers approached him, because he had familiar mannerisms.
"I am not a criminal, but I let myself wish for the easy money, I justified it to myself, and look what it cost me," he said. He is still not finished paying off the financial crippling he suffered from the first time around.
"Never heard of that one before," said North District RCMP spokeswoman Const. Lesley Smith. "But involving the victim in a crime is definitely a deterrent tool used by other kinds of fraudsters to keep the victims silent. The victims feel shame over being implicated in a crime - who wants to go to the police and tell them you were trying to counterfeit money? - and they feel embarrassment over being tricked out of their money."
She urged victims to always come forward as fast as possible, when a fraud happens, because the police understand the allure of fast, easy money and how that is used as a tool by scammers to trick people into doing things they wouldn't normally do.
"Money can cloud your judgment," she said. "You make yourself vulnerable."
The perpetrators in this case were booked into a local hotel where they were basing their illegal operations. Jones said he had heard enough from them to know he was dealing with exactly the same scam again and was going to have no further contact with them.
"You cannot trust a criminal," Smith said. "Even if you are part of illegal activity yourself, you cannot trust anyone working with you, because everyone is out for themselves. If that means you being scammed or taken advantage of, that is their way of succeeding - taking from you."
For more information on frauds in general, log on to the federal government's anti-fraud website at www.antifraudcentre.ca.
