Cryptocurrency scams on the rise around Maidstone, $570K lost in 2022
Maidstone RCMP were busy in 2022 responding to different scams, many of which involved cryptocurrency.
In total, police received 37 reports of people being victimized by fraudulent calls, losing a combined $570,000. Swift Current RCMP, which also saw a large uptick in scams, received 105 reports of fraudulent calls, however, the total amount lost was much lower at $361,000.
There were three main scams that kept popping up during investigations.
The first involved a scammer pretending to be from a government agency, like the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) or police, who demands payments for outstanding taxes or warrants for arrests.