Man charged in ‘grandparent scam’

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This article was published 13/03/2024 (602 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man is in custody after a Stonewall senior was tricked out of $16,000 in a “grandparent scam.”

The 79-year-old was called by someone claiming to be her grandson, who said he needed money for bail after being arrested in relation to a vehicle collision in Winnipeg.

The senior was asked to withdraw $8,000 from her financial institution and told it would be picked up at her home. She received another call from someone claiming to be her grandson’s lawyer, telling her the money would be picked up by courier and saying not to tell anyone about the payment. A man later picked up the money.

One day later, she received more phone calls advising her an additional $8,000 would be required to pay fines and exonerate her grandson. The second stack of cash was picked up the same way, RCMP said Wednesday.

She only called RCMP on Feb. 28, after a bank teller suggested she could be the victim of a scam when she went to pick up money after a third call from the scammer. When the suspect arrived to get the money, RCMP picked him up.

Nathanial South, 32, has been charged with fraud over $5,000. He was remanded into custody.

RCMP Cpl Julie Courchaine said South doesn’t have a Manitoba address, but he did have identification that links him to Quebec, along with an arrest warrant for fraud in Alberta.

“Our investigators will most likely be following up and seeing, where else could he have gone? Are there other victims? Can we link him to anything else and get enough evidence to lay even more charges?” she said Wednesday.

Officers hadn’t recouped any of the victim’s money, but the investigation continues, she said.

The “grandparent scam” involves a fraudster who claims to be a relative in need of money to get out of a sticky situation. The caller pleads with the victim to keep it a secret. Scammers are known to research obituaries or start the phone call with leading questions to gain credibility with the victim.

This year, there have been about a dozen cases in southern Manitoba, involving an estimated total loss of $70,000. RCMP believe there are more victims of the scam than are reported to police.

It’s becoming increasingly common for victims to be hit by the same scammer multiple times, and for the scammer to show up in person to collect the money.

“Our analysts have noticed similar occurrences to this all in the southern, Selkirk, Steinbach, Red River North, Stonewall areas. We’re seeing a large amount of money being lost as well,” Courchaine said.

“It’s concerning… but we’re just hoping by getting this out, more people are aware, more people are talking about it.”

The Manitoba justice department announced last year it would use its criminal property forfeiture fund to reimburse 14 victims of a similar grandparent scam, who lost a combined $145,500 over a 10-day period in 2022.

Unfortunately, it isn’t common to get your money back after falling victim to a grandparent scam, Courchaine said.

“I would say in my experience, it’s pretty low that people recoup their money. So it’s huge losses all around.”

The Winnipeg branch of the Canadian Association for Retired Persons regularly holds talks for its members about how to identify and avoid scams. Its newsletter included information on fraud.

Chair Carmen Nedohin said it’s difficult to keep up because every time a scam is shut down, others pop up.

She’s aware of scams that use artificial intelligence to take advantage of seniors.

“What grandparent isn’t going to want to help the grandkids, not necessarily understanding that this is a scam? It’s a sad reality,” she said.

“We as adults have talked to our children about different things to protect them along the way, and I think now it’s those adult children that need to also have conversations with their parents. It’s like we’ve protected them, now they need to protect us in a way.”

She’d like banks to take on a bigger role to prevent fraud.

“In cases where it’s… significant amounts of money that are being transacted, I think that’s where the financial institutions need to step up and add some kind of a flag on accounts where… suddenly $5,000, $10,000 is being requested.”

Bank employees in Canada are trained to ask probing questions if a customer makes an unusual transaction. They are also kept up to date on the latest scams, the Canadian Bankers Association said.

It has published online tool-kits to instruct different groups, including older adults and newcomers, about how to spot financial fraud,

“The realities of a connected world mean that threats are not limited to a financial institution’s systems and technology. Security is a shared responsibility and Canadians have a role to play,” association spokesperson Maggie Cheung wrote in an email.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

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