Victoria BC – The Crime Reduction Unit (CRU) is recommending several charges against two people after numerous frauds in the Victoria area over the past two months.
On October 24th, officers in the Crime Reduction Unit began an investigation into numerous fraudulent purchases throughout Victoria and Esquimalt. It is alleged that a suspect would enter a business and once they were handed the point of sale terminal to pay, the purchasers would manually enter an authorization code causing an override on the sale that would end in a ‘forced sale.’ Normally, the forced sale transaction allows the merchant to bypass the authorization process by manually entering an authorization code. Since the code is manually entered, the process is susceptible to exploitation by criminals.
Working with Analysts in our Analysis and Intelligence Section, a woman and a man were identified as suspects and taken into custody Thursday afternoon in the 800-block of Johnson Street. A search warrant was executed and our investigation is ongoing.
We believe that more businesses may have fallen victim to this fraud. If you were the victim of this type of fraud, we would like to hear from you by calling 250-995-7654.
Investigators are recommending several fraud and drug related charges.
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