An alert teller at a bank in Sidney became suspicious about a customer’s identification.
A few phone calls confirmed that the ID turned was fraudulent. Police were called and a prolific con artist who recently moved to B.C. was arrested.
On March 4, the man walked into a bank in downtown Sidney and tried to obtain a new debit card for an account based in an Ontario branch of the bank, said Sidney/North Saanich RCMP spokesman Cpl. Doug Wilson.
The bank teller noticed that the identification shown by the man looked suspicious and the teller called the actual account holder in Ontario to confirm that the man was a fraud. The teller called police and Mounties arrested the man. A quick search turned up several other sets of fraudulent ID in other people’s names, Wilson said.
The man had tried a similar fraud at a downtown Victoria branch of the same bank earlier that day but he fled the bank before the police could be called.
“It turned out that the suspect had a long criminal history of similar offences back on Ontario and had recently arrived in British Columbia to try his luck out here,” Wilson said.
The man has been charged with fraud under $5,000, possession of forged documents and possession of stolen identification and is also facing additional charges in connection with the earlier incident in Victoria. The man, having just arrived from Toronto, was considered a flight risk so the justice of the peace ordered that he be remanded into custody until his next court appearance in Victoria Provincial Court.
March is fraud prevention month, during which police departments across the region are trying to raise awareness about scams that cost victims a significant amount of money.
