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Gazette magazine
Seeing through the scams
The fight against fraud
No form of crime seems to bring out a criminal’s creativity quite like fraud. But whether a scam artist hits his victims in the perceived safety of their homes, at local businesses or even following a disaster, police agencies and their partners are becoming more savvy to fraudsters’ methods — and are teaming up to stop them.
Letter from the Editor
When we read and hear about major scams and fraud, the details are sometimes hard to believe — details about how low criminals will stoop to make money, and how trustful the public can be despite the warnings.
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is a prosecuting body with an investigative capability. It concentrates its resources on the biggest and most complex incidences of fraud.
Panel Discussion
How does your agency identify its fraud priorities?
Cover Section
Rental schemes, lottery schemes, overpayment schemes, inheritance schemes — the list of scams is endless. And it’s lucrative business. Between January and October 2007, law enforcement agencies in the United States (U.S.), Canada, the U.K., Nigeria and the Netherlands collectively seized over $2.1 billion, face value, in counterfeit financial instruments.
Canada’s National Anti-Counterfeiting Bureau
What’s new with the RCMP’s National Anti-Counterfeiting Bureau (NACB)? The word “National,” for one. In August 2007, the Bureau changed its name and its mandate to establish itself as a “centre of expertise” on counterfeiting activity and document security in Canada — a role that helps promote a more consistent, unified national anti-counterfeiting effort.
Nine competition venues, two athletes’ villages, significant highway upgrades, and new urban rail lines. Total projected cost of construction: over $3.1 billion, most of it public funds.
Identity fraud — the theft and fraudulent use of personal information for criminal purposes — is one of the fastest growing crimes of the new millennium. It is estimated that the fraudulent use of personal identities costs Canadian consumers more than $2 billion annually.
Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the early morning hours of Monday August 29, 2005. The combination of wind and storm surge destroyed 69,000 homes in Mississippi and devastated entire coastal communities in that state.
Many lottery players simply hand their tickets over to the local store clerk, asking if they have won anything. This opens the door for unscrupulous clerks to pretend that a winning lottery ticket won nothing (or just a tiny prize), then later claim the big lottery jackpot for themselves.
A South Australian man who fell victim to an online dating scam is lucky to be alive thanks to the quick thinking of his relatives and the rapid response and collaboration of police.
Organized crime groups are behind a large portion of skimming, which is growing at a rapid rate nationally and annually costs the Canadian economy millions of dollars in losses.
Nigerian con men took the world by surprise in the late 1980s with the ingenuity, complexity and sheer scale of their advance fee fraud (AFF) scams.
Wine manufacturers have been victimized by counterfeiters for years, but they are now fighting back, using a leading-edge product authentication process developed by the Swiss company Algoril.
News Notes
International visitors to RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa now have a dedicated space to meet with RCMP staff, conduct business and relax between engagements.
Combating international corruption requires a global effort. By April 2008, two RCMP international anti-corruption teams will focus on detecting, investigating and preventing international corruption such as bribery, embezzlement and money laundering.
A “geographic profiling” system first implemented by Canadian police to help locate and apprehend serial criminals is now being evaluated by the Canadian military for use in counter-insurgency operations overseas.
Every seven minutes in Canada, a child or youth is the victim of bullying at school — a statistic identified by Canadian researchers. But bullying is often overlooked because bystanders are afraid to intervene and because victims feel alone and helpless.
Q & A
Crawling inside the criminal mind
S/Sgt Matt Logan is one of only 17 people in North America who are both police officers and qualified psychologists, and one of even fewer who specialize in the criminal mind.
Just the Facts
Violent incidents on school grounds
The high school years are supposed to be the best years of a young person’s life, but violent incidents on school grounds threaten to compromise those years — or even cut them short.
Featured Submission
Developing a wiki format to consult on ideas for a new Policing Act was seen as a natural next step for capturing views from not only citizens in New Zealand, but also expatriate New Zealanders and other international citizens interested in policing and law making.
Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) teams around the world not only investigate the rape and torture of innocent children, they often must watch it happen. As one investigator said, “it’s like standing in front of a window watching it happen and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”
Best Practice
“Auto Theft Capital” no more
In spring 2004, Surrey RCMP embarked on a new crime-reduction initiative focusing on reducing auto theft and property crime through the identification and targeting of prolific offenders.
On the Leading Edge
Latest research in law enforcement
The following are excerpts from recent research related to justice and law enforcement. To view the full reports, please visit the website links at the bottom of each summary.
From Our Partners
Cross-border policing and the “shiprider” program
During August and September 2007, 50 RCMP and United States Coast Guard (USCG) officers operating in support of existing International Border Enforcement Teams (IBETs) conducted a pilot project that may change the course of traditional policing along the shared maritime boundary between Canada and the United States.
Virtual Library
More to explore on fraud from the Canadian Police College Library
Books, articles and websites from the CPC Library, the Departmental Library for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Emerging Trends
Radicalization and the RCMP Community Outreach Program
A number of recent domestic and international cases, including Project O-SAGE (an RCMP-led counterterrorism investigation that resulted in the arrest of 17 suspects in 2006), the London Bombings of July 7, 2005, and the 2004 killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, have demonstrated that the extremist threat is not always an external one.
