March is Fraud Prevention Month, police warn.

Police said online scams are the centre of this year’s campaign, since people are at home spending more time that ever accessing online services and marketplaces.

“Knowledge is power and the best way to reduce fraud is to increase fraud awareness,” anti-fraud officers said. “We all have to recognize, reject and report online fraud.”

Throughout March, the Toronto Police Service’s Financial Crimes Unit and its partners will be staging a special four-week #Fraudchat series to engage and educate Canadians by providing them with important fraud prevention information.

The #Fraudchats takes place between 1 to 2 p.m. and includes on March 11 Tax Scams, March 18 COVID scams, March 25 Employment Scams and March 31, an eight-hour Fraud-A-Thon.

Detectives said four suspects were recently arrested in a year-long employment fraud probe.

In Project Drop, suspects were sending out hundreds of thousands of text messages to cell phones advertising employment opportunities for couriers to deliver loans for a Toronto area company.

Police said victims were instructed to pick up and deposit what they thought were legitimate business cheques, then pay funds to other individuals in cash, Bitcoin or e-transfer.

All the cheques were discovered to be well-made forgeries and victims searching for jobs were allegedly defrauded.

Search warrants were issued in Toronto and Mississauga, including a downtown Toronto condo unit suspected to be the operations centre for the scheme.
Officers seized cheque forging materials, electronic devices and SIM cards that were allegedly used to blast out the mass marketing texts.

Police alleged that one of the individuals arrested was in possession of fraudulent government identities under the name of one female.