WATCH: Ted Chernecki has a warning about a new scam involving identity theft and reward points.
Two men meeting in the parking lot of a Vancouver casino and exchanging a number of credit cards has led to the discovery of a new scam.
Sgt. Randy Fincham with the Vancouver Police Department said this investigation, dubbed ‘Project Lancer’ involved the Auto Crime Enforcement (ACE) Unit, the Identity Theft Unit and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
In January, officers spotted the two men meeting and exchanging cards. One was in a stolen truck and the other was in a rental car.
When police investigated the rental car they found it had been rented with a fraudulent credit card related to the theft of someone’s identity from a lost wallet.
However, the major discovery in this case was the method being used by the suspects to obtain most of their stolen property. They used information from victims’ RBC Visa accounts, likely through mail theft, to redeem points for gift cards. Fincham said this scam usually goes unnoticed for quite some time until the victim attempts to use their points.
In many cases, users can cash in those reward points without a pin number so all that was needed was a name, address and date of birth. With those points someone can then buy goods and gift cards.
VPD investigators are working with RBC Security to combat this scam.
This suspect in the rental car was previously known to police and had an extensive history of fraud and identity theft. Fincham said further investigation revealed the suspect’s partners-in-crime, and that a $51,000 Mitsubishi Lancer EVO was purchased using the victim’s stolen identity.
When officers searched this suspect’s apartment in Surrey they found:
• ID and credit cards in victim’s names
• approximately 200 credit cards and ID in other names
• stolen mail
• a credit card reader/writer and credit card data
• memory sticks with driver’s licence, SIN and birth certificate templates for identity theft
• finance credit applications with another 100 different personal identifications, some used for identity fraud
• $20,000 in e-gift and hardcopy gift cards
Police were also able to recover two stolen vehicles and one stolen motorcycle.
In a 2011 Jeep Cherokee, which had been fraudulently rented, officers found a credit card manufacturing machine, fraudulent Best Buy and Future Shop e-gift cards, and stolen mail containing credit cards.
Surrey resident Daniel Adam Suchecki, 34, is now facing a number of charges including 19 counts of identity theft and five counts of possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000.
Twenty-five-year-old Surrey resident Christa Dawn Hucal, is also facing a number of charges including four counts of using a forged document and five counts of fraud.
The Vancouver Police have provided some identity theft prevention tips on their website.
Comments