According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the victim in this case is Aaron Yau, a Chinese-American university student from Vancouver who is in his second year of optometry studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. He then received a phone call from a man claiming to be from the Xi’an Public Security Bureau, saying that his personal information had been stolen and that he had opened a bank account to launder money, and that the authorities were conducting a criminal investigation.
I was largely panicked, and a good citizen never wants to have his name associated with any criminal activity,” Qiu said.
The scammers spent weeks convincing him that they were helping the police investigate shipments sent in his name, when in fact he never sent any packages.
He was not immediately asked for personal information or money, and promised to find out the truth and protect him if he would cooperate with the authorities and keep the story quiet. Yau Ah Lung said, “If they had asked for my personal information, or for money, I might have been suspicious, but they didn’t, they were very patient.”
The scammers even showed what appeared to be official public security appointment cards and other documents with official stamps. Yau Ah-lung contacted the scammers for many months and began to believe that what he was told was true.
A month later, the scammer asked Yau to make a wire transfer to ensure that the money would not be laundered, and promised to return the money after the investigation, so Yau wired $13,000 and $83,000 to bank accounts in Hong Kong and overseas.
By mid-December, the scammers stopped contacting him. He contacted the Waterloo Regional Police and the Hong Kong and Vancouver police, as well as his own credit agency and bank.
The Hong Kong bank said it was unable to freeze the account involved in the scam because of the length of Time that had passed, and the Canadian bank said it had no authority to intervene because he made the transfer of his own free will.
Police said that it is very difficult to recover the money, especially overseas money is very difficult.
Qiu Along frankly plus student loans and is facing great financial pressure, I hope the public to be more vigilant to avoid falling into similar scams.
In 2020, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre received more than 17,000 reports of extortion-related scams, with 6,600 victims defrauded of more than $12 million, a significant increase from the previous year when 2,300 people were defrauded of a total of more than $10 million.
The Anti-Fraud Centre reminds people that scammers usually pose as police officers from the victim’s hometown and call them in their native language to gain their trust before demanding money.
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