True Patriot Love - Canadian Fraud Is Becoming More Sophisticated ft Jeff Horncastle

00:00:00.000 a lot of canadians do not know that that technology is out there so anybody that's not

00:00:04.000 paying attention and they open up their there's the social media feed and they see a video of

00:00:09.120 you know the prime minister or a celebrity promoting an investment platform

00:00:13.440 it catches their attention right not realizing that the video could be fake

00:00:21.280 all right and joining me now uh part of the canadian anti-fraud center uh spokesperson for

00:00:27.520 the rcmp jeff horncastle did i did i give that designation correctly is it the canadian oh all

00:00:34.560 right that's not bad canadian broad center part of the the rcmp so that was perfect all right well

00:00:40.560 listen uh jeff thanks for taking the time to talk to us about this because uh i think that more than

00:00:45.200 ever you know a stressed economy leads to a lot of things but theft is certainly among them uh

00:00:51.200 there's technology happening all the time that is uh getting the bad guys closer to us our privacy

00:00:59.360 and a lot of cases our money uh and uh so i do appreciate this some of the numbers jeff tell me

00:01:06.640 how i'm doing here 112 000 112 000 plus fraud reports in 2025 704 million in reported losses

00:01:17.440 in 2025 which actually equals about 1.9 million dollars lost every day and i'm hearing these

00:01:26.240 numbers are low because many people don't report loss because they feel foolish or it could lead

00:01:32.880 to other ramifications how close am i on these stats here yes so the stats are accurate for 2025

00:01:39.760 um and you're exactly right it's uh there's the numbers are unfortunately a small sample

00:01:44.640 we estimate that only five to ten percent of victims report to the canadian anti-fraud center

00:01:49.040 so it's uh you know it they're astronomical numbers when we consider that 2.8 or over 2.8

00:01:56.000 billion has been lost to fraud since 2022 um and that's including you know the first half of 2026

00:02:01.520 we're over 350 million in reported losses again so on on pace to you know to have over 700 and

00:02:08.640 some million reported losses again in 2026 so uh yeah fraud is it's a huge problem in canada

00:02:18.240 that's a huge deal and then 68 million of it uh in spear phishing scams tell me what a fierce

00:02:25.200 uh spear phishing easy for me to say tell me what a spear phishing uh scam is and why it's so

00:02:32.160 prevalent yeah it's an important one to touch on i think we focus a lot on on individual frauds

00:02:38.800 um when we look at spear phishing they typically target businesses but when they're targeting

00:02:44.800 businesses they're also targeting individuals with within that company right so it's important

00:02:48.640 for canadians to know you know you start working at a company what what do you watch for because

00:02:52.960 unfortunately a lot of companies they may not provide this training to to make you aware of

00:02:57.920 what a spear phishing or business email compromise email looks like um so one variation could be you

00:03:04.240 know you're working in payroll uh you get an email from somebody claiming to be an employee asking to

00:03:10.160 to change their direct deposit information and not realizing that that email address is spoofed and

00:03:15.920 they're impersonating one of your employees you change the direct deposit information and

00:03:20.240 there you go the employee's paycheck has gone into an alternate bank account which has gone to

00:03:26.000 the criminals um a second prominent variation is um somehow fraudsters sometimes intercept

00:03:33.680 correspondence between the supplier and the victim company and they request that a large

00:03:40.000 payment be sent to an alternate bank account by wire transfer they say that they got a new bank

00:03:44.400 account uh can you send this one million dollar payment to this bank account instead of you know

00:03:50.160 bank account number eight and uh easy like that and a lot of the cases these uh these intercepts

00:03:56.000 happen from simple phishing emails where an employee may have clicked on a calendar invite or

00:04:01.520 you know what just not even realizing that they clicked on a phishing email and then they compromise

00:04:06.720 the company's network so that's how easy fraud happens um i think there's you know so much

00:04:12.320 stigma around fraud and uh things like this happen and we kind of hold it in we don't discuss it

00:04:18.640 and what does that turn into it turns into the problem getting worse yeah and you know you hear

00:04:24.560 about these uh hackers that are out there taking companies by storm uh holding them for ransom

00:04:30.800 uh often cases taking ransom dollars uh a global industry now that uh is somewhere in around 40 50

00:04:39.200 billion dollars on a global scale uh this is uh this is really problematic um and like you say

00:04:47.600 these may not be small payments these could be somebody's paycheck and that's significant but

00:04:52.000 it could be a million dollar transfer uh what about the hacking element of it right now

00:04:58.400 uh we saw a major insurance company in canada recently get taken uh down a data breach and

00:05:04.960 they were held hostage are we seeing more and more of this jeff and what can be done about that

00:05:10.000 yeah so ransomware i think is what you're referring to and there's a lot of it unfortunately

00:05:14.480 still around canada and uh it comes down to um you know in a lot of cases providing training and

00:05:21.760 orientation to to employees when you're you know hiring new employees and educating them on fraud

00:05:26.880 and uh going back to just having discussions about fraud and knowing that you know ransomware is a

00:05:31.680 thing and sometimes that a lot of them a lot of these ransomware attacks originate kind of like

00:05:36.240 spear phishing from a simple phishing email so you know uh having uh ongoing orientation on how

00:05:43.760 phishing is changing uh you know quizzes a lot of companies do it to to be able to protect your

00:05:49.840 your network and your um your company at the end of the day yeah it seems to me like the first 24

00:05:56.000 48 hours once this happens kind of crucial for companies what do you find that uh their their

00:06:02.080 advisories or you know the police are saying okay that you've been hacked this ransom has been

00:06:08.560 placed on you what happens in the first 24 to 48 hours that can make the difference

00:06:14.640 yeah that's a great question i think that uh just with fraud in general uh when when payments are

00:06:19.520 sent time is is crucial i know that you know when we've been successful with like working

00:06:24.240 with our partners and intercepting large transfers that first up to 72 hours is what we advise with

00:06:31.200 wire transfers is so important um and that's why you know we encourage we always say you know it's

00:06:37.520 so important to report to your local police to canadian anti-fraud center because that first

00:06:43.040 period of time is is extremely crucial for law enforcement to be able to have the opportunity

00:06:48.480 to do something um with ransomware our advice is you know not to pay the ransom um and report it as

00:06:56.240 soon as possible because like i mentioned with with fraud and um any crime for that matter it's

00:07:01.760 it's so important to report as soon as you realize that you've been a victim.

00:07:07.120 Jeff, what a pressure cooker moment, huh? Oh my God. Imagine you arrive to work,

00:07:11.120 you've got this ransom note, your clients are soon going to be notified that this breach has

00:07:16.560 occurred based on you having to report it. That's a hell of a moment for a business to be in.

00:07:23.360 It is because you have to think about everybody's identity with that as well. Everybody that's

00:07:27.200 work for the company uh if you deal with you know your clients uh their personal information stored

00:07:33.680 so a lot goes into it um and i think that you know that's why we we stress the importance of

00:07:40.400 of training and having these discussions with your employees um on a business level but on

00:07:45.680 a personal level with without all other types of fraud it's exact same right we always advise to

00:07:50.720 have these discussions within your your networks within your your with your family with your loved

00:07:55.760 ones so um yeah just talking about it can go such a long way we talk a little bit here about

00:08:04.080 corporate and yeah that is uh 68 million dollars of it is really uh i think you know into the

00:08:10.160 hundreds of millions probably but there you know as we approach almost a billion dollars here in

00:08:14.720 canada uh between reported and unreported cases i'm assuming it's probably much higher than that

00:08:21.440 uh how much of that is just targeted your average everyday person and who who's being targeted more

00:08:27.360 than anybody jeff at the moment so are you are you looking at spear phishing specifically or

00:08:34.720 just fraud in general i i think that uh you know internet fraud and email fraud is just a

00:08:40.880 fraction of it but you know it comes in on the phone it comes in on text message now

00:08:46.000 uh you know how are how are some of the modern fraud uh approaches reaching the public now

00:08:55.840 so i think that you know mike it comes down to um just fraud being everywhere you know we

00:09:01.760 we have our cell phone on us all the time uh we open it up we have a text message in our spam

00:09:07.120 folder uh we have emails we have you know you open up your your facebook feed or your social media

00:09:15.200 feed and it's just fraud is everywhere whether it's you know through advertisements even through

00:09:21.040 an online uh you know you're doing a search online and you know the first five to ten

00:09:25.280 results in a lot of cases are fraudulent websites so it's just knowing um unfortunately that you

00:09:31.440 know like i said fraud is everywhere and knowing what to watch for uh technology is changing it's

00:09:37.520 not like you know fraud was 20 years ago where uh it was coming come all fraud was coming into our

00:09:43.600 landline or through the mail it's changed so much now that uh you know we um you don't want to be

00:09:51.360 paranoid but you have to know that fraudsters want you to react very quickly right they want you to

00:09:57.520 click very quickly they want you to uh not have time to think in general so there's always urgency

00:10:03.920 with fraud and um the cyber environment and unfortunately has given criminals the opportunity

00:10:10.880 to to target anyone and everyone so on you know going back to your original question it's not

00:10:16.880 you know one demographic that's more at risk than the others i think we used to say that

00:10:21.040 you know yeah seniors are more at risk in in some cases where you know where they're targeted by

00:10:26.240 maybe the bank investigator fraud or the the grandparent scam a little bit more than other

00:10:31.200 um demographics but for fraud in general anyone and everyone is a target unfortunately

00:10:38.000 it's interesting you said urgency is a big part of fraud and uh that is something i think to be

00:10:43.840 aware of almost right away like if there's some urgency that you didn't anticipate in an email

00:10:49.840 no matter who it's coming from it's worth looking into 100 um now whether you know you're getting

00:10:57.600 an email claiming to be from a friend saying that they're in trouble uh they they need a favor they

00:11:03.280 They want you to buy a gift card for them.

00:11:06.640 Or, you know, you see an advertisement on social media saying that if you don't make this purchase today,

00:11:12.180 you're going to miss out on the opportunity to save 75% on this, you know, this drill or whatever.

00:11:18.820 It could be, you know, a phone call saying that your loved one's going to be arrested if you don't pay, put up bail.

00:11:25.180 CRA is another one that gets people all panicked.

00:11:29.040 It is.

00:11:29.620 And it's, you know, going back 10 years ago, there were phone calls saying that if you didn't pay your overdue taxes, you were going to be arrested.

00:11:37.440 That has kind of evolved now into the CRA.

00:11:40.520 You know, those calls still exist to different variations where they claim to be Service Canada or CDSA in a lot of cases.

00:11:49.160 But now they're phishing emails saying that, you know, you're entitled to a benefit or you owe an amount, click here.

00:11:55.960 Or, you know, the CRA is still impersonated very much, but, you know, different ways from

00:12:04.020 what we've seen.

00:12:04.640 They've found different methods to reach you.

00:12:07.400 By the way, CRA is likely not going to email you.

00:12:11.440 You'll likely receive something if they need you officially through the mail, as I understand

00:12:16.040 it.

00:12:16.660 That's kind of a tip right there, I think.

00:12:18.680 What other tips do you think we can offer in that regard to the general public when

00:12:22.680 it comes to email, text message?

00:12:24.920 like how do people what's a good identifier that you might be you might be getting fished

00:12:32.680 uh you know what i mean it uh it's hard to generalize like put everything in one um

00:12:42.600 but i think that you know our our advice here is you know whether you're getting an email

00:12:46.600 a phone call claiming to be the government the cra service canada you have you never have a way of

00:12:52.120 confirming who that communication is coming from you know whether you're getting a text message

00:12:57.160 like i said an email phone call there's color id spoofing now so even if that you know the official

00:13:02.600 cra phone number is showing up on your call display you have no way of confirming if that's

00:13:07.800 actually the cra or not so we always i get calls from my own phone number now exactly so the fraud

00:13:14.680 service criminals have the ability to make any phone number show up on your call display so i

00:13:18.760 I think that's one really important thing to remember.

00:13:21.900 And so many Canadians aren't aware that that's possible, right?

00:13:25.320 So they naturally see a phone number come up on their call display.

00:13:28.520 They open up Google.

00:13:29.420 They do a search and they say, oh, yeah, it's a CRA number.

00:13:31.800 It must be the CRA calling me.

00:13:33.680 You have to remember that that technology is out there.

00:13:35.580 And the only way to make sure that you're speaking with the CRA in this example is to make the outgoing phone call to the official phone number that you find by doing your own research.

00:13:45.900 jeff this might be crazy questioning now but these are the things that pop into my mind

00:13:50.540 uh and probably other people too so is most of this fraud taking place from within canada let's

00:13:57.020 say uh within the origin country of the place being scammed or are they often from foreign entities

00:14:04.860 into canada it's a great question uh you know from from what we understand or from what we've

00:14:12.220 seen a lot of fraud is coming from overseas so it's a crime that it's a borderless crime and

00:14:18.060 you know the cyber environment has created is blown that up substantially um with that being

00:14:24.220 said there is a lot of fraud from within canada we see arrests you know almost you know weekly or

00:14:30.380 a few times per week around canada where um canadians are facilitating fraud they're

00:14:35.740 involved in criminal groups organized crime um so to answer your question some is from within

00:14:43.340 canada but a lot of it comes from from overseas from other countries things like uh mortgage fraud

00:14:50.300 financial fraud white collar fraud is that on the rise now because technology a and i'll ask you

00:14:57.020 more about ai in a minute uh ai and all of that is enabling that white collar element of crime that

00:15:03.180 is fraudulent at the high level of money is that become a bigger problem in this modern era

00:15:11.020 absolutely so we you know unfortunately i don't have the number on uh on mortgage fraud but it's

00:15:15.660 something that's discussed a lot and there are different variations of mortgage fraud um and

00:15:20.220 just like you know the white collar product the tools are out there now for anybody to be able to

00:15:25.740 um to utilize to their advantage so um from from graphic design to uh writing emails professionally

00:15:34.140 you know somebody that may not have excellent vocabulary or somebody that uh you know didn't

00:15:39.820 know how to type well before ai was available what that's not the case anymore because they

00:15:46.140 it's it's right there and they can even actually tailor it to the kind of email

00:15:50.220 here's what i've understood recently is that they can get take a look at emails and texts and posts

00:15:56.300 and really tailor the way that you speak so that they can represent you or speak more directly to

00:16:01.580 you in a language that you'll receive it's terrifying how else is ai kind of contributing

00:16:07.020 do you think so we uh i think that you know automatically obviously when we think of fraud

00:16:12.460 ai we think of deepfakes right away i think there's there's been a lot so much in the news and you

00:16:17.340 know um just circulating about deep fakes and i think that that's one main way that it is being

00:16:23.900 utilized um so do you see the wait till you see the thumbnail for this video if you want to see

00:16:29.980 deep fake you can see but yeah no i can see i mean just in our everyday life for for the use of good

00:16:38.460 we are able to apply deep fakes pretty efficiently yeah and you know what though it's the fact that

00:16:45.420 that a lot of Canadians do not know that that technology is out there.

00:16:49.340 So anybody that's not paying attention to fraud or, you know,

00:16:54.660 why, you know, if there doesn't fit their lifestyle to pay attention to what

00:16:59.320 technology is out there and they open up their social media feed and they see a

00:17:04.020 video of, you know, the prime minister or a celebrity promoting an investment

00:17:09.560 platform, it catches their attention, right?

00:17:11.840 Not realizing that the video could be fake.

00:17:13.880 and to be honest mike these videos like i mean you watch them now there's no way that you can

00:17:19.960 in a lot of cases that you can i wouldn't be able to tell sometimes you know here's one indicator i

00:17:25.720 i don't think elon musk has the time to shoot as many commercials for financial and gold as i see

00:17:32.360 in my feed you know like it's incredible but you're right i don't know that i would be able to tell

00:17:38.280 the real elon musk from the the elon musk in person i might even be suspicious of the guy in person

00:17:44.840 so yeah it's it's very difficult uh to manage that i'm i'm positive yeah it's certainly

00:17:54.040 technology first came out you can you could kind of catch the choppiness or irregularities it's not

00:17:59.320 you know the technologies evolved so quickly that it's not necessarily the case anymore

00:18:03.800 um so all this to say is that you know you see video um you think it's a little strange do your

00:18:10.600 research consider the video fake until you can prove it's it's real type type deal um and uh

00:18:18.920 you know to go a little further ai is being utilized like we said to to communicate with

00:18:22.840 victims uh you know so fraud is coming from another country where english may not be the

00:18:26.760 first language they have the ability to to write perfect emails now phishing emails um they can

00:18:32.840 analyze large sets of data so they may have information about you before they they call you

00:18:38.680 uh we hear it all the time right well they had my name and my uh you know the the name of my bank

00:18:43.400 and uh my address my phone number well you know what if that if you were part of a breach in the

00:18:47.800 past and uh the fact of the matter is that information could be available in the dark web

00:18:53.480 and ai can facilitate analyzing large sets of data like i said and um that information can

00:18:59.400 be used to try to fraud you again so a few examples how ai can be utilized um at the end of the day

00:19:06.040 our tips don't change to protect yourself you know uh one of the things that i ask myself often okay

00:19:14.280 so this money gets stolen where does the stolen money go where do the thieves put the money how

00:19:20.360 are they able to transact it yeah it's a great question i think there are so many different ways

00:19:26.520 now the fraudsters can can transfer funds but we're seeing cryptocurrency was the number one

00:19:31.640 payment method used by by criminals in in 2025 and it was the the second year where it had surpassed

00:19:38.680 wire transfer so before 2024 it was always wire transfers that had the highest amount of um of

00:19:44.760 losses associated to uh the last couple years has been cryptocurrency and it continues to evolve

00:19:50.200 because of the difficulty that that law enforcement has to to trace crypto so we've seen that you know

00:19:56.040 go see a bunch of different wallets before getting into the hands of the fraudsters and

00:20:01.080 it makes it difficult for law enforcement to to trace unfortunately and is that because the laws

00:20:07.240 in this country the laws in another country and the laws in the other country where the wallets

00:20:11.400 exist are all kind of conflicting or not necessarily in sync yeah it definitely is one

00:20:18.840 of the roadblocks and that that's for all payment methods like even when we're looking at buyer

00:20:22.920 transfers laws are are different around the world and it does definitely pose a challenge for law

00:20:29.320 enforcement um but with that being said we don't we don't want to discourage reporting you know 1.00

00:20:35.160 based on the fact that well you know what they can't do anything because it's coming from another

00:20:38.360 country it's not the case um you know your report can help in so many different ways where where we

00:20:45.480 do work with other countries and international law enforcement agencies uh sometimes i watch

00:20:51.320 Australian news I don't know why I like kangaroos they often have kangaroos but what I did notice

00:20:57.640 is they had an officer on recently and his comment was that you are in an era where the platforms

00:21:09.080 make the rules and every country has their own designation for how to do this and cryptocurrency

00:21:16.040 is out there this is a tornado you cannot escape so you must be wearing a helmet at all times and

00:21:22.440 i thought that was a really good description of how we make our way through life nowadays

00:21:29.240 but then the other thing was he pointed out that most of this money never gets recovered

00:21:34.920 so if you want to prevent somebody in your life your your mother your father your uh you know a

00:21:40.040 loved one maybe your own kids from getting scammed you need to be reporting because with

00:21:45.720 each reporting comes more information with more information uh it's easier to secure

00:21:51.960 what happens in the future i thought that was kind of an interesting perspective

00:21:57.080 it is and i think you can you can kind of break that down in so many different ways and i think

00:22:01.800 that that helmet is awareness and education um now for a lot of canadians unfortunately they

00:22:09.000 they don't have a helmet and because they've maybe never paid attention to fraud they they don't know

00:22:15.160 what technology is out there and they don't know that they don't have the tools right so they're

00:22:20.120 they're going in blind and that's why we put so much emphasis on having these discussions with

00:22:25.640 your friends and family members you know not not sitting down and joining them hey you know uh

00:22:30.920 weekly fraud talk or whatever you know because i mean then your family's not going to come over

00:22:35.800 anymore right um but okay so let's say you don't need so much family time start talking about fraud

00:22:43.880 and life insurance and before you know it you'll get some peaceful barbecues on the weekend but

00:22:47.960 you're right yeah there has to be a moment it's it's difficult just this and i don't know you're

00:22:53.960 going to cremate me or what like these are conversations that are just we avoid in life

00:22:58.360 because of the pain points right right but i mean there's different ways i mean just talking

00:23:03.000 about technology like hey did you see these i saw a deep fake of you know of the celebrity

00:23:09.080 and uh it looks so real and it kind of clicks right stuff like that like just like mentioning

00:23:14.440 different things new technology or hey i got a phone call and uh it was actually the cra's phone

00:23:19.560 number that came up and i couldn't believe it you know there's different ways to educate your

00:23:23.160 friends and family members without making them feel like they um they don't know anything type

00:23:28.840 Well, it feels like that shame is what's so preventative in people reporting it because you're like, oh, I fell for it.

00:23:34.700 No, you didn't fall for it.

00:23:36.760 This was a really well-cultivated, curated, manicured approach to get your money, your ID, and to rip you off.

00:23:46.720 This is a concerted effort by a group of individuals who have advanced technology, have the ability to get into your systems and into your private world.

00:23:59.360 This is not to be embarrassed about.

00:24:01.240 This is to be reported.

00:24:02.420 This is crime.

00:24:04.120 How much do you think banks, the telcos, and the different platforms should be held responsible in this process?

00:24:12.720 process i mean i think they do what they can but really they are the front line of many of these

00:24:18.900 approaches yeah um you know i can't i can't speak on their behalf but what i can say is that

00:24:25.160 everybody has to uh work collectively to fight fraud and you know the canadian anti-fraud center

00:24:30.860 works with their partners in the telecom industry and you know the banking industry to uh to get

00:24:36.860 that messaging out there uh mike because i think that you know just going back to what we were

00:24:41.380 discussing here, I think that fraud is probably one of the only types of crimes where we put a lot

00:24:46.060 of, you know, not purposely, but a lot of the blame goes on the victim, right? And we kind of

00:24:53.460 forget. Why didn't you have this? Why didn't you use a VPN? Why didn't you? But there's criminals

00:24:59.560 behind that crime, right? So we talk about the victim side all the time, but we have to remember

00:25:04.580 that there are criminals on the other end of that. And that's really what we have to focus on.

00:25:11.380 you know, while educating Canadians at the same time,

00:25:15.500 so there's a balance there.

00:25:16.800 But, yeah, all I can say on behalf of, you know,

00:25:20.780 the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is that we work with our partners

00:25:23.040 to really try to get that messaging out there as much as possible

00:25:27.140 and to fight fraud as best as we can.

00:25:30.700 Any, and I don't want to put you on the spot here, Jeff,

00:25:33.260 you can even just say, Mike.

00:25:35.340 But any recent fraud examples come to mind that were so outstanding

00:25:39.980 or so crazy or so noteworthy you think that it might be worth sharing with us just to kind of

00:25:44.300 put a perspective on this yeah you know there's so much um going on right now but i think a few

00:25:51.180 recent notable uh alerts that we we've uh published um emails impersonating the commissioner

00:26:00.140 of the rcmp uh an rcmp with letters extortion letters saying that the uh the person is being

00:26:05.660 charged with a serious offense and if they don't respond to the email right away that they're you

00:26:10.940 know they risk being arrested so going back to that urgency right with extortion um recovery

00:26:18.700 frauds are are big huge so anybody you know and like you touched on at the beginning investment

00:26:24.460 fraud is is is massive uh it accounts for roughly 50 percent of reported losses to the canadian

00:26:30.620 anti-fraud center and normally victims of investment fraud and other types of fraud but

00:26:35.820 a lot of investment fraud are targeted the second time after a month or two saying promisingly get

00:26:41.820 their money back and in a lot of cases it could be the same group of criminals that that were

00:26:47.740 responsible for the investment fraud or they sold the victim's information to another group of

00:26:53.420 criminals and naturally they have all the information on the transactions which convinces

00:26:59.100 a victim that it could be real and you know this company could help them right so uh the victim has

00:27:04.700 nothing to lose they've tried everything they they've reported to police they've reported to

00:27:08.540 the canadian fraud center and they they think they've lost all their money and now this is their

00:27:12.300 last opportunity to try to get their money back so um unfortunately recovery fraudsters ask for

00:27:18.700 payments down the road again to support the investigation they promise that they're going

00:27:22.540 to pay the victim back and um within you know another month or two they're the victimized second

00:27:29.660 time how often are stolen funds recovered not often like i'll be honest like a you know uh

00:27:40.300 not to you know like we touched on the beginning the unfortunate part is when victims in a lot of

00:27:45.580 cases with a lot of types of fraud victims only realize that they've been victimized when it's

00:27:52.220 too late so they they report um but unfortunately a lot of cases nothing can be done um that's why we

00:27:59.020 we really stress the fact that you know the moment you realize you've been a victim it's

00:28:03.420 so important to to report where that you know that that initial time frame is crucial um but

00:28:09.180 to be completely honest not a lot of funds are recovered how does uh the canadian anti-fraud

00:28:15.580 center uh fit into this what do you guys offer that uh can be helpful uh corporate and personal

00:28:23.820 uh to keep people in the loop here yeah so uh first of all when you're reporting something

00:28:31.340 it could be something new that we have to share with canadians uh for awareness and prevention

00:28:36.220 education right so a new variation of fishing we have the ability to share with all of our partners

00:28:41.660 across the country uh we have a disruption program where we work with with companies uh

00:28:47.740 to disrupt the tools that fraudsters are using to communicate with with victims so uh we can you

00:28:53.580 know disrupt phone numbers websites email addresses i know that you know mike we you and i know that

00:28:58.780 it's so easy you know my number got shut down i can open up another number within a minute or two

00:29:03.420 um but it does help in a sense where you know if a victim a second victim is in

00:29:09.820 current communication with the fraudsters through that phone number that the first victim reported

00:29:13.820 and it gets disrupted then you save that second victim because it kind of gives that red flag

00:29:19.340 right so same thing with the website so that in that sense it does help and um like i said we uh

00:29:26.380 we do a lot of disruption with our partners and on top of that um we have the ability to link

00:29:32.940 information together from across the country so victim of spearfishing in bc another in quebec

00:29:39.820 and another a third in halifax let's say we have the ability to link the information together and

00:29:44.300 support investigations uh or any ongoing investigations across uh across the world

00:29:51.500 uh i will tell you this jeff your work is more important than ever becoming more so every day

00:29:56.940 uh certainly uh on the uh the theft front the fraud front i think you are the front line

00:30:03.980 uh and so uh to get a few minutes to chat with you about this is uh is pretty important i think to

00:30:09.500 all canadians um what is uh just to close what is the the scam that worries you the most

00:30:16.300 that you see on the horizon over the next couple of years uh honestly you know what i i think that

00:30:22.620 that just fraud in general continues to get worse.

00:30:29.340 And we have to remember that fraud,

00:30:32.120 the categories don't always change,

00:30:33.720 but the tactics change within those categories.

00:30:37.460 So we look at the bank investigator,

00:30:42.620 scary in a sense where it used to be a phone call

00:30:45.460 saying that a couple of fraudulent transactions

00:30:47.760 on your account, kind of easy to detect,

00:30:50.940 But now fraudsters are calling with some of your personal information, some of your transaction history, because you may have been part of a breach or who knows where they got the information, right?

00:31:00.920 In a lot of cases, we don't know for sure.

00:31:02.920 But all this to say is that fraudsters with technology have the ability to use some of your personal information.

00:31:09.220 Fraud has evolved in a lot of different ways.

00:31:12.080 And I think that, you know, just technology, the way it's changing is the scary part for a lot of Canadians.

00:31:20.940 I would agree, yeah. Sounds to me like fraud on the whole is what's on the rise, the tools, the enabling of criminals, and often they're ahead of the technology wave, even I would say over law enforcement.

00:31:36.140 But that you're coming together and being able to use this as an opportunity to bridge the information across the country, keep us informed, linked to other police forces and other enforcement and deterrent agencies out there, I think, is I think what we want to hear is happening by and large in Canada.

00:31:59.140 and that it's on the increase, I would imagine, means we need to look at more funding for this department over time.

00:32:08.840 We need to really be building on this alongside other really important criminal factors here in Canada.

00:32:16.300 This has to be among the highest, almost a billion dollars in losses in Canada in 2025

00:32:24.900 and reported fraud losses over $3 billion likely since 2022, including unreported.

00:32:33.860 Jeff, I appreciate your time on this, man.

00:32:36.060 Thank you so much.

00:32:36.780 And if something comes up and you think we need to know about it,

00:32:39.980 don't hesitate to get in touch because we would love to be the first

00:32:43.800 to get out there among everybody to tell people to be careful.

00:32:48.140 For sure.

00:32:48.760 Thanks a lot, Mike, for having me and I'm happy to do it any time.

00:32:52.300 I think that the frauds, like we touched on fraud changes so quickly, so I think we'd be able to have more meaningful conversations periodically to help your audience here.

00:33:02.380 So thanks a lot.

00:33:03.580 I'll tell you what, next time in North Bay, lunch is on me and we'll figure another topic to speak about.

00:33:08.960 Meanwhile, I'll put the link to where people can reach out to you in the description for the show.

00:33:15.880 so if you have a problem don't hesitate in the comments let us know anything we missed and uh

00:33:21.720 anything that you have in the way of experiences you think would help others we would appreciate

00:33:26.040 that jeff thanks take care of yourself now thanks mike looking for reliable and convenient personal

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True Patriot Love - July 31, 2026

Canadian Fraud Is Becoming More Sophisticated ft Jeff Horncastle

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