Grand Forks RCMP Investigates Stolen Truck, Talks Fraud, more

(Image provided by Grand Forks RCMP)

A gift card scam tops the list of Grand Forks RCMP's most recent weekly release.

Police were contacted by the victim on Friday, May 19^th, claiming that somebody had contacted them about a $35-million lottery prize and a 2023 Mercedes Benz. The victim followed instructions to “claim” the fraudulent prizes by purchasing Visa Vanilla gift cards, but they became suspicious and sought police when asked to obtain a $4000 certified cheque from the bank.

Sergeant Darryl Peppler says this kind of fraud is fairly common, but not everybody comes forward:

“Unfortunately we know a lot of people don’t report this just out of embarrassment. They will report it to the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre where they are given advice and they can check their credit rate to make sure that they’re identity is not stolen. However we do get the odd report of this and we know it’s happening across the province on a regular basis.”

“A good rule of thumb is that if it seems too good to be true, then it likely is.” he adds

The original scam call came from a New Jersey phone number and the fraudster claimed to represent Publishers Clearing House.

Grand Forks RCMP says the investigation into a stolen truck continues and thanks to surveillance video they do have a possible suspect in mind.

Sergeant Peppler explains that the victims contacted police early on May 21st and had made arrangements to meet with somebody later in the day about selling their truck, but then it was taken from their Como Road residence:

“The people thankfully have home security cameras and were able to view an image of the person who looked like the person that they had made contact with. Through follow-up investigation the person was then seen at a gas station fueling up.”

The truck is a red 1997 Ford Ranger (pictured above) with BC license plate RV9270.

Lastly, police spent part of the long weekend at a road check stop in Christina Lake.

Peppler says the detachment plans to carry these out at random dates and times:

“It doesn’t have to be on a long weekend or anything. It could just be a Tuesday night and the officers will set-up kind of wherever we feel that there has been some complaints or issues. At the end of the day we hope to have no results but unfortunately we will sometimes get results such as this one.”

An 18-year old Christina Lake female was given a 90-day driving prohibition and had the family-vehicle impounded for 30 days.

Officers checked over 100 cars in a 90-minute period, resulting in a few violation tickets for drivers driving contrary to their restrictions, as well as various warnings for new drivers failing to display their ‘N’ sign.