A member of the Windsor Police Financial Crimes Unit says business owners need to realize that two recent 'large-scale' financial frauds are not unique to Windsor.
Sgt. Rob Durling says this is not unique to local financial institutions; this is a nationwide problem, even a worldwide problem.
Police are investigating two alleged cases of fraud at a currency exchange business in the 3200 block of Dougall Avenue in Windsor.
In the first case, on May 1, a woman allegedly used a fraudulent Canadian passport to obtain $130,000 in U.S. currency.
The second case on May 7 saw a man use a fraudulent Canadian passport before transferring approximately $138,000 Canadian to the financial institution in exchange for $100,000 U.S.
Once the U.S. funds were obtained, police say the suspect cancelled the Canadian transfer, resulting in a loss of roughly $130,000 to the business.
Sgt. Durling says, as far as they know, they appear to be separate incidents, and they have yet to determine any links making them related, but the investigation is ongoing.
Durling says the company will probably have to change some of their policies as a result of this.
"Unfortunately these kinds of events happen; there are always people that are trying to defraud the banking system, and this is just another one" he says.
Durling says there's a good chance the suspects are not even from the area.
"A lot of times fraud is transnational. We see people come from all over to defraud places, both locally and provincially, and for that matter, nationally," he says. "No one can hide from it, unfortunately."
Durling says businesses need to be aware that this type of thing is happening.
"Hopefully someone else may benefit from this story indirectly because maybe they'll take a look at the way they do business, and they might be like, 'hey, you know what, maybe we should change things up on how we conduct day-to-day,'" he says.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Windsor Police Service Financial Crimes Unit at 519-255-6700, ext. 4330. The public can also contact Windsor & Essex County Crime Stoppers anonymously at 519-258-8477 (TIPS) or online at www.catchcrooks.com.
