No bail for Quebecer accused of defrauding local seniors

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This article was published 28/05/2022 (1596 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Police have arrested a 27-year-old Quebecer for her part in a telephone scam that cheated five Winnipeg seniors out of more than $50,000.

Jasmine Ryan was arrested May 8 and charged with more than two dozen fraud-related offences.

“Given the number of allegations and the pattern of the allegations… this is only the tip of the iceberg of what may be an organized-crime group carrying out significant financial crimes targeted at elderly and vulnerable victims,” prosecutor Larissa Campbell told provincial court Judge Rachel Rusen at a bail hearing last week.

Police allege a woman matching Ryan’s description used falsified identification to withdraw $5,000 from a Winnipeg TD Bank customer’s account last January. Subsequent attempts to withdraw money from customer accounts at other banks were denied after bank staff became suspicious that the woman could not remember the addresses on her identification or properly pronounce the names, Campbell said.

Police launched an investigation and reviewed security video at the banks that allegedly tied Ryan to a rental vehicle, Campbell said. Analysis of the vehicle’s GPS placed it not only at the banks, but near the homes of five seniors later identified as victims of a phone scam.

All five victims received calls from men identifying themselves as RCMP officers and claiming their grandson had been arrested with drugs in their car and required large amounts of cash for their bail.

In the case of one victim couple, “the pretend police allowed them to talk to their pretend grandson… (who) was crying, upset and implored them to provide the money to go home,” Campbell said.

The fake police officer told the couple a “courier” would come to their house to collect the $7,000 bail, which they were to put in a brown envelope addressed to a fictitious judge. The couple was told a five-day “gag order” would be in place, during which time they would not be able to talk to their grandson.

Five victims provided descriptions of the courier matching Ryan, Campbell said.

One victim was repeatedly targeted, ultimately losing $26,000 before family realized she had been defrauded. Court heard she first received a call from a man telling her she had won $1.5 million from Reader’s Digest, but needed to send cheques to a Quebec address before the prize could be processed. She was also a victim of the bail scam and provided her bank card and PIN to a courier. It was later confirmed the bank card had been used for fraudulent purchases in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

Another 81-year-old victim was told his grandson had been injured in a car crash, at the same time his wife was in hospital with terminal cancer.

Police arrested Ryan during a traffic stop May 8 and found her in possession of stolen bank cards and several pieces of falsified identification documents.

Campbell opposed Ryan’s release on bail, arguing she had no ties to Manitoba and posed a serious flight risk and that the public would lose confidence in the justice system were she to be released.

“The exact system — namely the bail system — that Ms. Ryan allegedly abused to extort money from vulnerable elders in our community is now the system in which she finds herself,” Campbell said. “Having used and abused her knowledge of the bail system, Ms. Ryan is requesting the court put trust in her word and release her.”

Ryan’s lawyer said the case against her was based on shaky identification evidence while at the same time arguing she did not knowingly target vulnerable seniors and may have been “duped” and exploited by criminals “who don’t have her best interest at heart.”

Ryan “was taken advantage of, rather than an integral part of this supposed criminal organization,” said Zaid Shams, who proposed Ryan be released to live with her parents in Quebec.

Rusen denied Ryan bail.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca