Despite laying dozens of charges, RCMP have stopped targeting Canadian accomplices in foreign scam calls

Within the darkness of the early morning of Feb. 13, 2020, a number of unmarked RCMP autos adopted Gurinderpreet Dhaliwal right into a parking zone in Brampton, Ont., northwest of Toronto. When he stopped, the Mounties made their transfer, surrounding his automobile, ordering Dhaliwal out and putting him in handcuffs inside seconds.
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His arrest — and that of his spouse, Inderpreet, hours later — was the results of Challenge Octavia, a concentrated RCMP investigation into phone scams bilking Canadians out of tens of millions of {dollars}.
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A police search of his dwelling would reveal $114,000 in jewellery, plus extra money, a money-counting machine and different proof that police say helps their allegations that the couple have been key cash mules for an abroad crime syndicate, funnelling and laundering cash from Canadian victims of rip-off calls to India-based call-centre operators.
The Dhaliwals’ trial has been repeatedly delayed. Each have pleaded not responsible to fees of fraud, cash laundering and possession of proceeds of crime. Not one of the fees towards them have been confirmed in courtroom.
Three others scooped up within the job drive’s broader investigation fled Canada earlier than they could possibly be arrested. Two others have been working from Nepal, however can be arrested in the event that they ever come to Canada. Two took offers avoiding jail time. One was deported. And one has not but had his trial scheduled.
However inside a 12 months of the Dhaliwals’ arrest, Challenge Octavia quietly disappeared. The RCMP job drive that focused Canadian accomplices of rip-off calls was disbanded, at the same time as these calls proceed unabated and Canadians’ monetary losses mount.
“In an business like this that operates with impunity, you’re sending a message that Canada would not care about this sort of crime,” mentioned Vanessa Iafolla, a monetary crimes researcher at Saint Mary’s College in RisePEI.
Public stress compelled preliminary RCMP response
The Mounties shaped Challenge Octavia in October 2018 after a CBC Market investigation revealed how little the RCMP had achieved to fight the 1000’s of rip-off calls harassing Canadians yearly, with schemes starting from Amazon refund scams to impersonating Canada Income Company officers.
Ralph Goodale, then-federal public security minister, promised motion. Quickly after, the particular job drive was shaped on the Milton, Ont., detachment to seek out these in Canada offering the important hyperlink between victims right here and name centres abroad.
“It is basically a nationwide precedence investigation,” RCMP Insp. Jim Ogden mentioned when the duty drive was created.
However in January 2021, with instances nonetheless pending and rip-off name exercise surging, the RCMP eradicated its monetary crimes unit in Ontario, which oversaw Challenge Octavia, redeploying the rip-off name investigators into different areas.
Whereas the Mounties formally say the work will proceed inside different pre-existing items, together with critical and arranged crime groups, a senior RCMP supply advised Market the investigations have stopped.

Victims “will proceed to be victimized, they haven’t any recourse,” the supply mentioned by e mail. CBC is granting confidentiality to the supply as a result of they concern skilled repercussions for talking out critically on the choice to successfully finish Challenge Octavia.
The supply says the RCMP is uniquely positioned to work with police in India to deal with the continuing calls.
“These scams are multi-jurisdictional, which makes it not possible for native police departments to truly cope with them successfully,” the supply mentioned.
An RCMP spokesperson advised Market that its Built-in Market Enforcement Groups (IMET) “stay a devoted unit that focuses on frauds or different varieties of criminal activity in securities markets.”
WATCH | Canadians nonetheless dropping cash to rip-off calls as RCMP shutters job drive:
CBC Market has spent 5 years investigating telephone scams, the scammers and the alleged co-ordinators in Canada who funnel cash overseas. Now, the workforce has discovered that the RCMP, which as soon as promised it could do the whole lot it may to cease spam calls, has dismantled Challenge Octavia, its job drive devoted to stopping them. 1:52
The RCMP mentioned the unit “gives experience in securities regulation, course of and regulation, monetary providers, regulatory necessities, forensic accounting, company investigations, safety threat administration and capital-market felony investigations.”
Nevertheless, the supply advised Market that the unit has nothing to do with investigating telephone scams.
The choice, says Iafolla, is “very reactionary. It is fly-by-night.”

Ending the duty drive particularly focusing on these funnelling cash overseas “simply makes Canada a extra enticing place for folks to interact in these sorts of scams,” she mentioned.
Police say cash mules in Canada absorb cash — and preserve a set portion of it — in return for being a conduit again to felony kingpins. Not all mules are essentially conscious of their position within the rip-off. Some grew up in India and got here to Canada on pupil visas, or emigrated, and have been recruited to turn out to be mules earlier than leaving India or as soon as established in Canada.
How the scammers get their cash
Whereas most of these contacted by scammers don’t fall sufferer to the ruse, a ample quantity do, which makes it a vastly worthwhile endeavour.
Telephone scammers, mentioned Iafolla, “are individuals who actually perceive what vulnerabilities different folks have and exploit them.” She describes them as “pure psychologists.”
Monique LaFrance, of Gatineau, Que., misplaced almost $200,000 in what has turn out to be often known as the financial institution investigator scheme.
“He introduced himself as a safety investigator from the Royal Financial institution, and he advised me that my accounts had been compromised,” she mentioned of the rip-off name she obtained in August 2020. “He requested me if I needed to assist them discover the fraudsters and assist others.”

The scammer mentioned he would deposit cash in her account — and that she was to ship that further cash in money by courier to particular addresses. What she did not notice was that the scammer had entry to her on-line banking, and was including cash to her financial savings account by drawing from her line of credit score.
“It is loopy. It is actually loopy. It will get me sort of sick simply desirous about it,” she mentioned.
A kind of packages was addressed to Abhinav Bector, at his dwelling tackle, and one other package deal addressed to Abhi B, at a duct-cleaning enterprise the place a man of the identical title was an worker. The RCMP tracked that package deal and arrested Bector.
He was charged with fraud, cash laundering and possession of the proceeds of crime. However in an association that averted a trial and the potential for a jail sentence, he pleaded responsible to solely the final cost.
When approached by CBC journalists in November 2021 and requested if he had something to say to his victims, a few of whom are going through the prospect of dropping their houses and life financial savings, he responded: “I’ve nothing. I used to be not.”
Indicators on Bector’s automobile counsel he works now as an Uber driver. However at sentencing in September 2021, the courtroom heard he had obtained a job supply from a Canadian financial institution. His felony document might be cleaned a 12 months after his responsible plea, so the financial institution making the supply might by no means know of his felony previous.
‘I believe it is merciless,’ alleged sufferer’s daughter says
Each Gurinderpreet Dhaliwal, arrested by the Mounties in that parking zone in February 2020, and his spouse, Inderpreet, are scheduled to face trial. Nevertheless, the proceedings have been repeatedly delayed and are actually not scheduled to start till the spring of 2023.

They proceed to reside within the Brampton dwelling the place police say they discovered money related to rip-off victims.
Courtroom paperwork allege considered one of them is Melissa Steele’s father. She would not need to establish him by title, worrying the scammers will goal him once more. He has cognitive difficulties and nonetheless doesn’t perceive what’s occurred — or the results that may change his life.
“He obtained a type of calls saying that he owed tax cash and that he was in bother. He ended up driving to his financial institution and taking out cash.”
He has since needed to transfer out of the house. Steele has a message for the couple who allegedly obtained her father’s cash, resulting in fees.
“I might say it is merciless, and the way would they really feel if any individual handled, you already know, their family members that means.”

CBC journalists requested Inderpreet what she would say to individuals who misplaced their life financial savings, a few of whom can be anticipated to testify at trial. She responded: “No remark.”
Her lawyer, Thomas E. Pittman, later contacted CBC to emphasise his shopper wouldn’t make feedback earlier than trial. He mentioned the RCMP have wrongly characterised her as a “participant in a global felony syndicate.”