Crime
EPS investigation identifies purchase order scam targeting PPE and industrial equipment companies across the globe
EPS investigation identifies purchase order scam targeting PPE and industrial equipment companies across the globe
The online scheme targeting PPE, industrial and electronic equipment companies in Canada, the United States and Australia, has seen the suspects impersonating various commercial companies, including “Clean Harbors”, a large North American environmental, energy and industrial service provider. The suspects would then contact various suppliers using altered emails, the names of associated company executives and illegally obtained credit reference information to fraudulently obtain shipments of various equipment including the highly sought-after N95 masks. The equipment was then shipped to warehouses across Canada and the United States by the suspects, who are believed to be operating from Nigeria and London, UK.
It is alleged that the suspects would then coordinate an online pick-up from a courier company using compromised courier accounts, and have the shipment delivered to England, where it was then moved to companies with exporting connections to Nigeria.
“Many companies around the world are dealing with various challenges right now just trying to financially stay afloat during this pandemic,” stated Det. Jason Lapointe, of the EPS Economic Crimes Section. “Then they find themselves under attack by criminals from abroad that are attempting to fraudulently acquire various equipment, including PPE, destined to help those who are in desperate need of it. It’s unconscionable really.”
In mid-March, ECS investigators received information that a Leduc company had been targeted. The local electronics company had received a purchase order worth approximately $18,000 for two-way radios. The order was initially placed by email through Clean Harbors, a vendor known to the local company through previous business transactions.
It was reported to police that the Leduc equipment company then received a subsequent email supposedly from Clean Harbors requesting that the shipment of two-way radios be re-directed to a location in Calgary. Representatives with the local company became suspicious and contacted Clean Harbors to clarify the situation, which confirmed their suspicions that they were being defrauded by someone impersonating an executive with Clean Harbors. As a result, representatives from the Leduc company were able to stop the shipment from being delivered.
In early April, an Edmonton telecommunications equipment supplier fell victim to this scam after a shipment of equipment worth $170,000 was sent to a storage facility in the UK. EPS Economic Crimes Section prevented another $130,000 shipment of equipment made by this same Edmonton company from reaching its final destination, after it was located at a shipment center in Ontario
As an example of this scam’s impact on the current COVID-19 crisis, these same suspects placed orders through two Canadian corporations situated in Quebec and B.C. for $100,000 worth of personal respirators and replacement N95 3M filters. These shipments were located at separate loading facilities, and EPS Economic Crimes Section investigators facilitated the return of these shipments to the respective companies.
The EPS Economic Crimes Section is urging businesses to remain vigilant when dealing with potential clients online.
Read more on Todayville Edmonton.
COVID-19
The Vials and the Damage Done: Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory Scandal, Part II
From the C2C Journal
By Peter Shawn Taylor
In China, minor security infractions are routinely punished with lengthy jail terms in dreadful conditions. In Canada, it’s just the opposite. Clear evidence of espionage is rewarded with a free pass back home after the mission is complete. Neglecting our national security in this way may suit the Justin Trudeau government, but it is doing great harm to Canada’s relationship with its most important allies. In the concluding instalment of his two-part series, Peter Shawn Taylor examines the many ways in which the spy scandal at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg has damaged Canada’s international standing and contributed to the growing perception that Canada is a foreign agent’s happy place. (Part I is here.)
The Scientists Who Came in From the Cold: Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory Scandal, Part I
Addictions
Liberals shut down motion to disclose pharma payments for Trudeau’s ‘safe supply’ drug program
Liberal MP Majid Jowhari
From LifeSiteNews
The motion comes as RCMP testified in April that Trudeau’s taxpayer funded ‘safer supply’ drugs are being diverted to the black market.
Liberal Members of Parliament (MPs) resisted a motion to disclose payments made to pharmaceutical companies for “safe supply” opioids.
During a May 15 session in the House of Commons, Liberal MPs blocked a vote on a motion by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis to publish the contacts between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government and pharmaceutical companies for “safe supply” opioids.
“Allow the public to see the contracts,” Genuis told the Commons government operations committee, questioning, “What do you have to be afraid of?”
“There are contracts involving this government and big pharmaceutical companies involved in producing and selling dangerous hard drugs which then end up on our streets,” he argued.
“Big pharmaceutical companies are involved in supplying hard drugs that are used as part of the government’s so-called ‘safe supply’ program,” Genuis continued. “These programs are a failure. We oppose them. In any event, we believe the public has a right to see the contracts.”
However, a committee vote on his motion was quickly blocked by Liberal MPs.
“I don’t think this is a motion we should move forward with,” Liberal MP Majid Jowhari said.
“I think we should go back and look at it and say our objective is to get an understanding of the source of safe supply and how it is being procured, which is different than going and saying, ‘Give us all the contracts,’” he continued.
Similarly, Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk claimed the request was a political tactic, saying, “They are against safe supply and safe consumption sites. That is clearly spelled out by my Conservative colleagues.”
Genuis’ request comes as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) testified in April that Trudeau’s taxpayer funded “safer supply” drugs are being diverted to the black market.
“Organized crime groups are trafficking not only illicit substances but any prescription drugs they can get their hands on,” Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, commander of the RCMP in British Columbia, testified.
Genuis put forward a motion asking that the committee “order the production of all contracts, agreements or memoranda of understanding to which the Government of Canada is a party signed since January 1, 2016” concerning the purchase of opioids.
Liberals’ refusal to release the contracts comes as the Trudeau government recently rejected a proposal from the Alberta government to add a “unique chemical identifier” to drugs offered to users under “safe-supply” programs so that authorities could track its street sales.
Indeed, the Trudeau government seems determined to pretend their “safe-supply” programs are a success despite the rising deaths and crime in cities that have adopted their policy.
However, the program proved such a disaster in British Columbia that the province recently requested Trudeau recriminalize drugs in public spaces. Nearly two weeks later, the Trudeau government announced it would “immediately” end the province’s drug program.
Beginning in early 2023, Trudeau’s federal policy, in effect, decriminalized hard drugs on a trial-run basis in British Columbia.
Under the policy, the federal government began allowing people within the province to possess up to 2.5 grams of hard drugs without criminal penalty, but selling drugs remained a crime.
Since being implemented, the province’s drug policy has been widely criticized, especially after it was found that the province broke three different drug-related overdose records in the first month the new law was in effect.
The effects of decriminalizing hard drugs in various parts of Canada has been exposed in Aaron Gunn’s recent documentary, Canada is Dying, and in U.K. Telegraph journalist Steven Edginton’s mini-documentary, Canada’s Woke Nightmare: A Warning to the West.
Gunn says he documents the “general societal chaos and explosion of drug use in every major Canadian city.”
“Overdose deaths are up 1,000 percent in the last 10 years,” he said in his film, adding that “(e)very day in Vancouver four people are randomly attacked.”
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