Man, woman charged with fraud in alleged grandparent scam targeting U.S. woman
Posted May 21, 2014 8:40 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
KINGSTON, Ont. – An Ontario woman and a Quebec man are both facing charges in connection with what police are calling a “grandparent scam” targeting an elderly American woman.
Kingston, Ont., police say the intended victim — who lives in Illinois — received a phone call from a man claiming to be a Kingston lawyer, who said her grandson was in a car accident and needed her to send $8,400 to help pay for repairs and court costs.
The woman recognized the scam but played along to obtain additional details, which she gave police.
Detectives determined the address given by the suspect to send the money was a vacant Kingston residence listed for sale, and a dummy package was sent to the address without any money in it.
Police say a woman was later seen on the vacant property and was arrested earlier this month when she was found to have the dummy package in her possession.
A 32-year-old Kingston woman — whose name is not being released — is charged with one count of fraud over $5,000, as is 32-year-old Jackson Benjamin Roy of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que., near Montreal.
Police allege that the woman was simply the interceptor of the package and that Roy is the organizer of the fraud scheme.
The investigation is continuing and detectives say there may be additional victims in the United States and Canada.
