Vancouver/CMEDIA: A new warning from Mounties in Metro Vancouver alerts residents of increasingly using emails by scammers to extort money from victims by threatening to reveal compromising photos, videos and personal information to their friends and family members.
18 reports of the scam in the past week have been received by the Coquitlam RCMP local detachment with the perpetrators often sending a photo of the victim’s home to suggest they possess a pile of personal information about them.
The photos of the homes, investigators said, are not images taken by the perpetrators, but sourced from simple online searches.
Typical instructions received by the victim are to send money to a Bitcoin wallet or else risk the allegedly compromising images and information being sent to their loved ones.
“This scam can appear convincing as the perpetrators have contacted the victims directly and provided open-source personal information to further perpetuate the scam,” Cpl. Alexa Hodgins of the Coquitlam RCMP said in a statement Thursday.
“We want to remind the public to remain cognizant of these types of scams and to report incidents to the police immediately,” she added.
None of the victims who reported the scam attempts to police had sent money to the scammers, the Coquitlam RCMP spokesperson said, adding the perpetrators of the scam “can be highly convincing, using tactics that are enticing, pressuring and threatening in nature.”
Anyone encounting such extortion attempts are being asked by the authorities to report them immediately to police.
Anyone who falls victim to an online scam is urged to immediately cease all communication with the scammer and deactivate – but don’t delete – any accounts used to communicate with the perpetrator.
“Keep the correspondence,” police advised in the statement. “Keep information such as the person’s username, social media account information, a copy of the communications, along with any images and/or videos that were sent.”
Besides maintaining a database of recent scams and frauds, The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre also maintains resources for victims and those seeking to avoid being victimized.
A national police service that gathers intelligence on fraud across Canada, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) assists Police of Jurisdiction with enforcement and prevention efforts to help citizens and businesses.
Recovery of approximately $7 million lost to fraudsters in Canada between 2021 and 2023 was possible by The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
According to data compiled by the agency, an estimated $569 million was lost to scammers in Canada last year, while $284 million has been lost so far in 2024,
