11 charged in Toronto taxi scam that allegedly defrauded customers of over $500K

Eleven radical person been arrested and charged aft a Toronto constabulary probe into a taxi scam that allegedly defrauded more than $500,000 from unsuspecting customers implicit 10 months.

The 11, accused of being portion of a transgression web that exploited members of the public, look 108 charges. 

At a quality league connected Thursday, constabulary said the probe called Project Fare began past July aft constabulary received aggregate reports by victims of the taxi scam. Initially, constabulary identified 61 incidents of fraud, but that fig rapidly grew to much than 300.

Det. David Coffey, spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service, told reporters that the suspects masqueraded arsenic taxi drivers utilizing vehicles that were modified to look similar licensed cabs.

Coffey said unsuspecting customers got into what they thought were morganatic taxi cabs lone to find retired that they were scammed aft they paid their fares.

"Unsuspecting victims were picked up and asked to wage for the thrust utilizing a recognition oregon debit card. During the transaction, the suspects discreetly swapped the victim's paper with a paper that looked similar theirs. The existent paper and their PIN is past passed connected to accomplices," Coffey said.

"These fraudsters utilized the stolen cards and PINs to retreat funds from ATMs, deposit fraudulent checks to artificially inflate relationship balances and marque precocious worth purchases, including electronics, acquisition cards and luxury clothing."

At the quality conference, constabulary displayed immoderate of the items that the fraudsters purchased and that constabulary seized during the investigation.

On May 21, members of the police's fiscal crimes unit, with assistance from officers from assorted divisions, carried retired 3 hunt warrants astatine addresses linked to the accused. Police made arrests and seized respective point-of-sale terminals, precocious extremity clothing, electronics, artwork, respective slope cards and vehicles resembling taxis.

The suspects see 10 men and 1 pistillate from the Greater Toronto Area, ranging from 19 to 50 years old. The charges see fraud implicit $5,000 and possession of proceeds of transgression implicit $5,000. Police said they are inactive looking for 2 antheral suspects and a pistillate considered a idiosyncratic of involvement successful the case.

News of arrests brings alleviation to cab company

Kristine Hubbard, operations manager for Beck Taxi, said aft the quality league that she is relieved that constabulary person laid charges.

"I'm conscionable truly relieved to cognize that this was taken earnestly and that it's been dealt with," Hubbard said. "When idiosyncratic defrauds oregon engages successful transgression enactment successful the sanction of morganatic services, it's beauteous heartbreaking and it's beauteous defeating." 

Hubbard said she has proposal for customers.

"Nobody's saying nary to cash. That's fig one. And if idiosyncratic has a constituent of merchantability terminal, it can't judge debit and not credit, right? So our debit terminals oregon constituent of merchantability terminals are intelligibly branded," she said.

"They person the Beck branding connected them and they instrumentality debit and credit. If someway a monolithic cell outage happens, evidently that's affecting the whole city, that mightiness beryllium the lawsuit wherever there's nary debit and nary credit, but there's ne'er 1 and not the other."

Also, she said customers should ne'er fto their debit cards retired of show and it should not permission their hands.

Customers should besides look for a marque that they trust and look at conveyance numbers to identify legitimate taxis, she said.