One of 14 arrested in ‘prolific’ grandparent scam pleads guilty to bilking seniors

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Giordano De Luca, one of 14 people arrested in April and charged in an apparent “grandparent scam,” has pleaded guilty to his role in a sophisticated and “prolific” telephone fraud that bilked dozens of seniors out of $1.2 million in a three-month period.

De Luca’s case is the first of the criminal cases to reach a resolution as he appeared in an Ottawa courtroom last week to enter a guilty plea to fraud over $5,000.

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De Luca, 24, was arrested following a massive multi-agency investigation into the organized fraud campaign that targeted seniors with landlines and tricked victims into believing the caller was their grandchild in crisis.

De Luca was known as “John,” while other members of the organization had nicknames like “Pav,” “Glasses,” “Pitt” and “Zeus,” according to a detailed 47-page agreed statement of facts filed in court by Crown attorney François Dulude that outlined the extent of the scam.

De Luca often played the role of “opener” as he would phone the target and pretend to be a grandson or nephew in trouble with the police.

He would tell his mark he had been in a car accident and that police had found drugs in the car.

He would also occasionally take on the role of “closer,” according to the Crown’s outline, and would read from a “closing script” as he pretended to be a police officer demanding money for bail.

De Luca used a simple trick to gain the confidence of one 86-year-old woman in St. Catharines, Ont., in a call that was intercepted by police on Feb. 12.

“Hey grandma … It’s me, your grandson,” De Luca said.

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“Which one?” the victim asked.

“The oldest one. Who do you think it is?” the fraudster replied, following the scam script’s opening lines.

She then asked the caller if he was “Jason” and he quickly replied yes.

De Luca told the woman he was at the police station after a car crash, claimed there was an arrest warrant out for the car’s owner and said police had found drugs in the vehicle.

He then handed the call to an accomplice who “delivered the closing script” and told the elderly woman that bail for her grandson had been set at $8,000.

The accomplice, who is now facing his own set of charges, first asked the woman a few “security questions” and quickly gleaned Jason’s real last name and hometown.

The fake officer told the woman her grandson had been a passenger in the car and police had found a “substantial amount of marijuana,” but they “didn’t think Jason was the culprit.”

He reassured the woman that Jason’s drug test was “clean” and his fingerprints were not found on the imaginary drug bags.

He told the woman “he did not want to see Jason get a criminal record that could haunt him in the future.”

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Jason had “turned to her for help” with his bail money, he said, “and it needed to be in cash.”

A cheque or money order would take days to clear and Jason would remain in jail during that time, the accomplice said, according to the Crown’s outline.

The woman told the scammers she “doesn’t get around very well” when they told her to go to her bank to withdraw $8,000 cash.

She was told to avoid telling anyone about the withdrawal as Jason had signed a non-disclosure agreement.

The alleged fraudsters suggested the woman tell the bank the money was for a “good deal on a used car,” and even suggested the make and model she should mention (a 2010 Toyota) in her cover story.

The call ended, according to the summary, “with De Luca telling her he loved her.”

De Luca’s defence lawyer, Samantha Robinson, told the court her client had reviewed the Crown’s case and he was “prepared to accept the facts outlined.”

The police investigation, dubbed Project Sharp, included extensive wiretaps and surveillance as police identified 23 different call centres in Montreal, Laval and Toronto.

Police laid 56 total charges in April against 13 men and one woman ranging in age from 24 to 33, most of them residing in the Montreal area. Those cases remain before the courts and the Crown’s allegations have not been proven.

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Some were arrested when police busted a call centre on April 10 and recorded one suspect on the phone exclaiming, “The cops are here!”

Police have since arrested another suspected member of the group, a 24-year-old Waterloo man who is facing similar charges.

De Luca is from Laval, Que., according to the Ontario Provincial Police charge sheet.

De Luca was initially charged with participation in a criminal organization and identity fraud, but those charges were withdrawn as part of his plea.

“This cell of the grandparent scam was prolific,” the Crown stated. “A single opener would often place over 300 calls daily to potential victims. On a typical day at a call centre, 600 to 700 phone calls were made from cellphones to landline telephone numbers.”

The average success rate was estimated at one to two per cent.

During the height of the wiretap investigation from mid-January to early April, police identified 126 victims who had lost $739,810. Police were able to disrupt a further $500,000 the suspects attempted to take from victims during the same three-month period.

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The Crown said the total of $1.2 million, if considered an average haul for one financial quarter, would mean the alleged “cell of the criminal organization would have defrauded seniors out of just over $5 million this year.”

Investigators identified 269 total victims since the investigation launched in the fall of 2022.

De Luca had “direct involvement” in the cell, according to the Crown’s outline, and was observed by police targeting 147 seniors during one 11-day sample period between Jan. 30 and Feb. 9.

He was first identified by police as a suspect in November 2022, when he was spotted at a Laval call centre.

He also had extensive phone contact with other accused members of the cell, including the alleged “manager,” whose nickname was “Levi.”

Between April 2023 and January 2024, De Luca had more than 8,000 phone sessions with Levi.

In one intercepted phone call from February, the manager could be heard “pushing De Luca to produce, even though it was late in the day.” He told De Luca he could still be calling cities like Niagara Falls, where the banks stayed open late.

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“You could still hit deals,” the manager told him. Police noted a spike in grandparent scams in the Niagara region in the days after that call.

In another intercepted call in April, shortly before police moved in and dismantled the cell, the manager can be heard scolding De Luca for showing up late for work. De Luca was ordered to “get a f—ing deal.”

He was communicating with another scammer cell and looking for a transfer when he was arrested, according to the summary.

The cell used low-level “fringe” members to act as “couriers” to pick up the cash from their victims — often while the victims were still on the phone with the scammers. Some were used as “money mules” or unsuspecting couriers, police said during a news conference announcing the arrests in April.

The victims were told they were under a “gag order” and were not allowed to speak to others about the transactions.

De Luca is not accused of acting as courier, but was often involved in the transport of funds for the scam, according to the Crown’s summary. He was once overheard speaking with his girlfriend as he described his role in transporting $150,000 from Niagara Falls to Montreal.

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De Luca and “Levi” were watched by police surveillance teams in Ontario on “various occasions” meeting with a contact nicknamed “Chef” to pick up the cash that had been collected by couriers.

Officers saw “items being exchanged between the parties at these meetings,” according to the summary.

The investigation was led by the OPP and Sûreté du Québec and involved investigators from 11 police agencies across the two provinces. Victims ranged in age from 46 to 95.

Scammers would search Canada411 and other websites and would “target victims in predetermined geographic locations” across Canada.

De Luca was not always successful, and the Crown included one failed scam attempt in its evidence.

In a series of calls on Feb. 27, a skeptical 65-year-old man in Ingersoll, Ont., called a phony number he was given for RCMP dispatch and instead connected with the alleged cell manager, playing the role of the fake “Const. John Rockford.”

De Luca played the role of the man’s nephew, “Jake,” and said he needed $9,400.

“What’s going on? The officer told me you don’t believe it’s me,” De Luca is heard saying. The man, suspecting a scam, challenged De Luca to tell him “something personal … that no one else would know.”

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“You’re the best uncle I ever had … You married my aunt,” De Luca replied.

“That doesn’t tell me nothing,” the man replied.

De Luca “appeared to start crying” before the man “determined he was being defrauded” and hung up the phone.

De Luca is due back in court in November to set a date for sentencing.

ahelmer@postmedia.com

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