Police say they are becoming more aware of increasingly aggressive tactics being used to target Calgarians through the use of what’s called the ‘CRA Scam’.

Over the past week and a half, police say over $50,000 has been stolen from victims and more than 600 cases of the CRA Scam have been identified in the city since February.

In the incidents, people are usually contacted over the phone by a person pretending to be a representative of the Canada Revenue Agency.

They say the victim owes a substantial amount of money in back taxes, and informs them they may not be staying in the country legally.

The scammer tries to keep the victim on the phone through the use of threats of imprisonment and deportation. During that time, the victim is instructed to send money through money transfers, prepaid credit cards, and cash deposits into certain accounts.

To make matters worse, police say that fraudsters have even sent taxis to the victim’s home to take them to money transfer businesses to conduct the payments.

Multiple calls have also been made to victims, all from the ‘613’ Ottawa area code by using a call-spoofing system, with the fraudsters using different names to impersonate different officials.

Police say these fraudulent calls originally targeted new Canadians, but they are now getting reports from a wider population of victims.

Month (2015)

Number of Cases Reported

Number of Victims Who Reported a Financial Loss

February

2

1

March

10

2

April

23

4

May

34

6

June

73

17

July

234

14

August

231

11

Total

607

55

Police encourage anyone who believes they may have lost money to one of these scams to call the Calgary Police non-emergency line at 403-266-1234.

Anyone who may have other information about these scams is asked to contact the non-emergency number, or Crime Stoppers anonymously using any of the following methods:

TALK: 1-800-222-8477
TYPE: www.calgarycrimestoppers.org
TEXT: tttTIPS to 274637