Hundreds of people across Canada, including several dozen in Edmonton, have lost more than a million dollars combined to a complex Amazon job scam with ties to international organized crime and human trafficking.
Investigators with the Edmonton Police Service electronic response team began investigating in 2022 after receiving several complaints from people who fell victim to a task-based employment scam that involved accessing a fraudulent internet platform.
Scammers contacted victims on social media about a “job and investment opportunity” they could do from home.
Positioned as completing Amazon orders, police said the fake position required victims to log into an internet platform called “Sharegain” to invest money based on the size of the order and process 20 to 40 tasks per day to earn guaranteed investment returns.
“Individuals were impersonating Amazon, stating that they were hiring people to work remotely, and that all they had to do was sign on to their platform and complete a series of tasks,” said Const. Brian Mason with the EPS police electronic response team.
Referred to as an “order-grabbing job,” victims would access fake Amazon orders and purportedly process them for reviews and shipment.
“The tasks basically consisted of a review for a product coming in. They had to click accept, and then forwarded it off, and that was completing the task. You completed 40 of those and you got your commission for the day.”
Like a Ponzi scheme, funds from one victim were sent to another and like a pyramid scheme, the scam encouraged victims to recruit others to generate greater returns.
Each order earned a commission percentage, depending on the victim’s investment level, with larger orders requiring greater investment but yielding higher returns.
“What was ultimately told to them was that each one had a different dollar value and that they earned a set fee off of that,” Mason said.
“And of course, as they went through the queue of each task, the dollar amount got higher and higher and higher, to the point that they said, ‘Well, you know, in order to complete these tasks and actually get your payout, you have to invest into the platform to do it.'”
Victims would invest their money, get an initial withdrawal/payout to confirm the platform was “legitimate” and then make more investments.
“This validates that, OK, the platform actually exists,” Mason said. “So they start investing more in order to go through more tasks every single day — because the more tasks they complete, the more commission they earn.
“And they just keep investing more and more, thinking it’s now legitimate.”
The funds received in the initial withdrawal were sent from another victim, thinking they were investing in the platform.
“The suspects are actually getting victim A to send money to victim B — because victim A thinks they’re investing in the platform originally, but what they’re actually doing is they’re paying victim B, to entice victim B to invest more in the platform.”
Mason said after the initial payout, victims would be given all sorts of excuses of why their successive payments weren’t being sent, ranging from problems with processing fees to tax issues.
“At that point, they just get stuck in an endless loop of these fees and excuses and ultimately they never get their money back.”
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Scammers also encouraged some victims to allow access to their financial accounts in return for higher investment returns.
An organized crime group from China orchestrated the scam in Canada and operated out of British Columbia, police said.
“It was a collection of five individuals operating originally from Fujian, China, that had come into Canada, into Vancouver area, and were ultimately running the scam,” Mason said.
Mason said the scammers set up a website and had an entire network established to launder money through the victim’s bank accounts, and “ultimately funnel it into either personal accounts to be shipped and wire transferred into China, or moved into cryptocurrency accounts and then moved into China from there.”
The scam out of B.C. had been going on for about three months when police were contacted back in 2022, Mason said.
“They used it as a test bed in order to launch an identical scam afterwards,” Mason said, adding the scammers expanded across the country shortly afterwards.
The Sharegain platform operated from August 2021 through May 2022 and is believed to have impacted more than 600 people across Canada, resulting in more than $1.2 million in losses.
“The scams themselves are extremely complex,” Mason said, adding the scammers thought of everything from polished graphics, legitimate-looking systems for troubleshooting and external chats on WhatsApp and Telegram in order to sell their scam.
“A lot of moving pieces and a lot of networking involved.”
Police said the scam is international in scope and that the investigation involved agencies across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, including Canada Border Services Agency, Nanaimo and Langley RCMP, Homeland Security and the FBI in the U.S.
Data collected showed historical links to funds believed to be associated with human trafficking, both in finances and shell companies in the United Kingdom and China, police said.
Mason said once the gig was up, the scammers would move on to other parts of the world — which made the investigation challenging.
“Our primary suspect had fled Canada before this investigation ever got off the ground. By the time we got enough information from complainants to start writing warrants for data, things like that, that individual was already back to China.”
Mason said the file involved pouring over mass amount of data with a financial crime analyst.
“Probably about 4,000 pages worth of data, so it was exhaustive,” he said.
Mason said Canadian police have managed to recover about $200,000.
To date, Edmonton police have confirmed losses of more than $84,000 among more than 30 people in the area, but police believe there may be more victims who have not come forward.
Police said the scammers often targeted newcomers and impersonated law enforcement and Canada Revenue Agency employees to instill fear.
“The only thing that really tipped people off that this wasn’t legit at all was when they started giving these compound excuses for not paying them out. They would impersonate CRA, saying, ‘OK, well, you’re gonna have to pay us taxes, otherwise we’re going to pursue legal action.’ They would threaten to have people arrested,” Mason said.
“They would give all these threats and in most cases people would take a good while to actually understand that what was going on was a scam.”
Many of the complainants maintained silence due to threats of deportation or charges, police said.
“Most of our victims involved are, or at the time, were newcomers to Canada. They weren’t very familiar with how the CRA works, how banking institutions work as far as repayment of investments, things like that. It took a little bit of time for them to actually realize it and report it.”
Edmonton police said while scams are becoming more sophisticated, there are some tried and true red flags to watch for, such as a recruiter setting up HR text chats on platforms like WhatsApp or Telegram.
“If you can’t talk to them in person, you can’t talk to them over the phone, over Zoom, things like that — that’s a red flag.”
Other red flags: promises of a guaranteed return on investment. Mason said a legitimate company will never say things like that as it opens them up to too much liability.
“If anyone is randomly recruited for a job or investment that guarantees quick results and high payouts in a short period of time, it is likely a scam.
“If it seems too good to be true, it usually is.”
Mason said scammers know people are desperate for work and prey on that.
“Especially in today’s economy, people need funds. Groceries are going up, housing is going up. Things like that, it’s not about greed — it’s about wanting to survive. These scammers will prey on that because they know people need money.”
“These guys are master manipulators — it’s what they do for a living.”
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Police and Amazon worked together to suss out the scam, and Mason said the company was very quick to respond and provided a lot of resources to help determine the illegitimacy of the Sharegain scam.
“Scammers that attempt to impersonate Amazon put consumers at risk,” said Jamie Wendell, senior corporate counsel at Amazon.
Amazon said victims of this scam, or anyone who receives other suspicious communications that claim to be from the online retailer can report it at, amazon.ca/reportascam.
“Amazon will investigate and help hold bad actors accountable.”
Charges of fraud over $5,000 have been laid against three people: Chen Chen, 36, Jiameng Wang, 29, and Dalraj Gill, 35. Police said they are all in B.C.
Edmonton police are encouraging anyone who has been affected by the scam to come forward by calling 780-423-4567 or #377 from a mobile phone.
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