Large response from Calgary Police to phishing threat
Posted Dec 13, 2018 7:39 pm.
Last Updated Dec 13, 2018 9:33 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
CALGARY (660 NEWS) – The Calgary Police say 15 businesses were targetted within the city limits by an international phishing scam and they suspect there are a good number of others who have not reported it to police.
An email gets sent to businesses that there is a bomb and it will be set off unless they pay a given amount of bitcoin.
Inspector Melanie Oncescu says there was no rhyme or reason as to why these businesses were targetted, they are all very random.
“I think the response was really important by these individuals who received it,” she said. “I think that they recognized it was a concern and they contacted us and let us assess the situation. I think it’s no different from other scams where people receive an email and their spidey senses tingle and they think this isn’t correct, call us and let us assess the situation.”
Investigators are currently working with other agencies across the country to determine the individuals responsible.
It’s unclear if any person or business fell victim to the scam by sending in the demanded ransom.
“We need to make sure that Calgarians are safe and we need to respond appropriately to determine there is no actual threat,” said Oncescu.
The Calgary Police Service was quick to warn people over social media that there may be a delay to other low-priority calls for service.
“The way of defrauding individuals now is online so this is not a surprise, what seems to have changed is perhaps the threat of violence,” she added.
Oncescu says they are asking anyone who has yet to come forward to not delete the email and contact the Calgary Police non-emergency line where someone will get in contact with them.
They’re continuing to collect intel which will be handed over to the RCMP for investigating on a much larger scale.
