The Police Department of the City of Saint Jerome is warning residents and merchants of a fraudulent scheme employed by a highly organized group.
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When a customer completed a purchase in a store, two fraudsters carefully watched his transaction.
The scheme consists of identifying a customer’s PIN and then stealing their wallet a few seconds later.
Robin Beaulieu, a police officer in Saint-Jerome, showed our journalists an example of a fraud committed by the group.
“We are talking here about the first suspect who will move so that he sees the person when he executes the PIN code […] People will target victims, often people who are a little older. At first, the first suspect will approach the victim,” he says, about ten feet away.
A second suspect located a little further away is involved in the scheme.
“There will be an angle effect. They will both respect the victim’s PIN.”
At the exit from the supermarket, one of the suspects grabbed the customer’s wallet to proceed to buy various items in the minutes following the robbery. Scammers make sure to withdraw as much money as possible from the card.
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“The victim will simply go and pick up his basket and you will see the two suspects steal the wallet very quickly and very discreetly,” explains the police officer from the city of Pas Laurentides, while the client is never aware of the trap.
Interviewed by TVI Nouvel, a Laurentian native, Ms. Gerard was defrauded out of nearly $5,000 at the end of April.
The scammers noticed her at the cash register when she entered her PIN.
In the parking lot, the crooks took all of his bank cards from his wallet.
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“I wasn’t in a good mood, I told myself I was […] At the self-service checkout, someone bothered me […] I went to my car and there was a gentleman who approached me,” she said.
The lady is still in a state of uncertainty, as her bank does not plan to reimburse her for the stolen sums.
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Remember that the scheme was seen in several sectors of the county.
*Watch the report in the video above*
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