Scams aimed at Vancouver's Chinese Canadian community claim $6M

Vancouver police say scammers targeting Chinese Canadian community members have taken almost $6 million since the start of this year.

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) said Friday that they are currently investigating 26 cases related to the scams, though they believe that there are more victims who have yet to come forward. 

Scam victims can sometimes lose their life savings, according to Dixon Ng, a victim services worker with Vancouver's Chinese Community Policing Centre. He said that can be very traumatic. 

"The amount of damage, emotional damage … it's very hard to imagine," Ng said. 

According to the VPD, there are three kinds of scams that are targeting the community. 

In the first one, police say scammers use a spoofed phone number and impersonate Chinese police officers, telling victims that their phone or identity has been used to commit crimes. They then trick victims into sending money to banks located in Hong Kong in order to clear up the supposed issue. 

Police called the second kind a "blessing scam", which involves tapping into the spiritual belief of the victims, especially the elderly.

According to the VPD, scammers tell victims that bad luck or sickness would happen to them or their loved ones if they don't send cash or jewelry. In some cases, police say the scammers will then exchange the victim's cash or jewelry for "a worthless gift."

The third kind of scam advertises jobs where callers could potentially earn $100 to $300 a day making jewelry or art, and these are shared on posters written in traditional Chinese, police said.

Once the victim calls scammers, police say they switch tactics and gain money from the victims using the more common romance or investment scam.

Those involve scammers pretending to fall in love with the victim, or hyping up a non-existent investment opportunity, in order to gain their trust.

"We're asking everyone, especially those in the Chinese community, to spread the word about these scams with elderly family and friends," Const. Tania Visintin in a Friday press release.

Queenie Choo, the CEO of immigrant services agency S.U.C.C.E.S.S., told CBC News that seniors and newcomers are particularly vulnerable to these kinds of scams because of cultural and language barriers. 

"This is very upsetting, and I'm sure it's even more upsetting [to] the victims as well," she said. 

Choo also encouraged victims to come forward, though she acknowledged that many might not be aware of the process or could be wary of law enforcement. 

"They don't know what are the consequences, what are the implications to them, the fear of the unknown," she said. "However, in Canada, we need to [report] so that police can do the investigation and be able to catch those scammers."

The VPD encourages anyone who thinks they might have been victimized by these scams to contact the police non-emergency line at 604-717-3321.