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Crime

EPS is highlighting the risks of finding love online

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6 minute read

The victim of an online romance scam is sharing his story in hopes of preventing more people from being taken advantage of by scammers. Online romance scams are a lucrative business- in 2018, the Edmonton Police Service investigated 11 incidents of romance scams totaling an overall reported loss of $1,115,219.74.

Con was in the hospital when he received a message from a woman who said she had seen his dating profile. He was happy to have the company while he was confined to the hospital bed – even if it was just over the phone.

  

       Sample of images sent to portray the woman’s online profile

She said she was a United States citizen on an overseas contract as a computer civil engineer. She was a single mom; her son was nine-years-old. Eventually, she would say that she “fell in love with a guy from the internet”.

Months into their chats, the requests for money began; she said the camera on her phone was broken but she couldn’t afford to fix it, so she needed $600 to replace it. Con denied her request so she stopped contacting him, but months passed and they started talking again. She asked him for money once again, telling him she was relying on him to get her and her son to the States. So he gave what he could towards a new phone- $100. It wasn’t enough, so she stopped talking to him.

Nearly a year later, she asked him if he still loved her; the continued to talk for a couple of weeks and then she told him she was laid off and needed help. He told her to go to the U.S. Embassy for help, but she admitted that it was an illegal work contract. She needed to get home, but she didn’t have enough; she was a mere $1500 short.

The next day, ticket prices went up. He paid the difference. And then her son was diagnosed with malaria. Shortly after, they were in a collision and had hospital bills – she even sent x-rays. But she had money back home; she just needed help paying the hospital bills in order to be released from the hospital. Once she got home she would be able to pay him back. She even “proved” her financial state by sending a picture of her bank accounts in the U.S.A; she just couldn’t access them while overseas.

Sadly, Con’s dream of having a family was used against him by fraudsters. When one of his banks interfered and the Edmonton Police Service investigated his case, this romance scam came to $143,000.

When asked why he sent the money, he pauses… “Hope that it would be real. Having her and her kid. Money isn’t important. This is; having someone else in the house besides me.”

 

Protect Yourself 

It is important to remember that romance scammers do this for a living – it’s their job and it can be very profitable.

“It’s absolutely heartbreaking that these scammers are taking someone’s desire for happiness and using it against them,” Detective Linda Herczeg stated. “They commit all of their time into these scams because it’s their job and it’s lucrative.”

Websites and apps are constantly used for matchmaking, friendship building, and networking, but users should be aware of the potential risks.

Signs that a social media or dating profile user is a scammer

  • They ask you for money.
  • They profile you and tell you everything you want to hear.
  • They will find out what you are looking for in a relationship and create events that will play on your emotional to get you to send money – sick children, airline tickets to come be with you/marry you so you can be a family.
  • They groom you for as long as it takes (days, months, years) to get your money by being very attentive, lavishing you with attention, compliments and tell you that they love you. Usually they profess their love early in the relationship.
  • They are always available because it is usually a group of individuals that are sending you messages, working off a script.
  • The images of your “loved one” will be stolen off the internet.
  • Your “loved one” will rarely have a voice conversation with you or have a live conversation via FaceTime or Skype.
  • Your “loved one” will always have an excuse why they cannot meet you.
  • They will always find a reason for you to send them more money.

 

You can find more information on online scams and online dating safety tips on the EPS website.

The EPS reminds citizens that fraud prevention is continuous – we need to recognize it through continual education, report it, and stop it. We ask that you share this information with those in your life who may be a target for romance scams.

If you are a victim of any fraud, please contact the EPS at 780-423-4567 or #377 from a mobile device.

Catherine Herridge

FBI imposed Hunter Biden laptop ‘gag order’ after employee accidentally confirmed authenticity: report

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

Two independent journalists found that the FBI could have set the record straight by confirming the laptop was real and the subject of an ongoing criminal probe. Instead, FBI leadership allowed the false narrative about the laptop to gain momentum.

In a shocking report published on X, independent journalists Catherine Herridge and Michael Shellenberger revealed that an FBI agent accidentally confirmed to Twitter (now known as “X”) that the Hunter Biden laptop story was real less than three weeks before the 2020 election.

“For the first time, and with a change of administration, the FBI has now turned over to GOP House investigators the internal chat messages that show Bureau leadership actively silenced its employees,” Herridge and Shellenberger wrote on X.

“The FBI, which had a special task force to counter foreign election interference, could have set the record straight by confirming the laptop was real and the subject of an ongoing criminal probe,” the journalists explained. “Instead, FBI leadership allowed the false narrative about the laptop to gain momentum.”

“In 2024, an FBI official admitted to House investigators that an FBI employee had inadvertently confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop to Twitter on a conference call the morning of October 14, 2020, the day the New York Post published a story about it,” Shellenberger wrote.

“I recall that when the question came up, an intelligence analyst assigned to the Criminal Investigative Division said something to the effect of, ‘Yes, the laptop is real,’” testified the then-Russia Unit Chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force in a closed-door transcribed interview,” according to Herridge and Shellenberger. “I believe it was an (Office of General Counsel) attorney assigned to the (Foreign Influence Task Force) stepped in and said, ‘We will not comment further on this topic.’”

They recounted this exchange:

An individual whose name is blacked out, tells Elvis M. Chan, the San Francisco-based FBI special agent tasked with interacting with social media companies, there was a “gag order” on discussion of Hunter Biden’s laptop. In a separate exchange, Chan is told “official response no commen(t).”

In the chat, the FBI officials showed awareness that the laptop may have contained evidence of criminal activity.

Asked Chan, “actually what kind of case is the laptop thing? corruption? campaign financing?”

Another FBI employee responds, “CLOSE HOLD —” after which the response is redacted.

To which Chan responds, “oh crap,” appearing to underscore the serious nature of the probe, which included felony tax charges. Chan adds, “ok. It ends here.”

In the same conversation, Chan is asked if “anyone discussing that NYPost article on the Biden’s?”  Chan responds, “yes we are. c d confirmed an active investigation. No further comment.”  “C D” is likely shorthand for the FBI’s Criminal Division.

Said another FBI employee, whose name was redacted by the Bureau, “please do not discuss biden matter.”

It’s now common knowledge that national security agencies — including the FBI and CIA, Big Tech, and much of corporate media — colluded in suppressing truth and manufacturing lies in order to drag their preferred candidate, Joe Biden, across the finish line in the 2020 presidential election.

Incriminating evidence discovered on the laptop that Hunter Biden had long ago abandoned at a computer repair shop — reported on in two devastating pieces by the New York Post at the time — was ignored by mainstream media, fraudulently dismissed by former national intelligence officials, and essentially made inaccessible to the public by Big Tech social media sites Twitter and Facebook.

The computer contained emails showing that then-Vice President Biden had come under the influence of bad actors in Ukraine and Communist China and had used his powerful position in the Obama administration to pressure government Ukrainian officials into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the energy firm, Burisma, which was paying the younger Biden $50,000 per month to sit on its board of directors.

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2025 Federal Election

Liberal MP resigns after promoting Chinese government bounty on Conservative rival

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

“I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty,” he said at a recent rally. “What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?”

Liberal MP candidate Paul Chiang has dropped out of the running after being exposed for suggesting Canadians turn in a Conservative Party candidate to the Chinese consulate to collect a bounty placed on the man by the communist regime.

In an March 31 statement, Chiang, the Liberal candidate for the Markham-Unionville riding, announced his departure from the race after a video of him suggesting a bounty could be claimed for Conservative candidate Joe Tay by handing him over to Chinese authorities circulated on social media. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have announced they are “probing” the comments.

“I am proud of what we have achieved together and I remain deeply grateful for the trust placed in me,” he said. “This is a uniquely important election with so much at stake for Canadians. As the Prime Minister and Team Canada work to stand up to President Trump and protect our economy, I do not want any distractions in this critical moment.”

 

“That’s why I’m standing aside as our 2025 candidate in our community of Markham-Unionville,” he announced.

Chiang’s resignation follows backlash from Conservatives and Canadians alike when a January video from a news conference with Chinese-language media in Toronto resurfaced.

In the video, Chiang jokingly suggested that Tay, his then-Conservative rival for the Markham–Unionville riding, could be turned over to the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto in return for $1-million Hong Kong dollar bounty, about $183,000 CAD.

 

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre was quick to call out Chiang’s suggestion and blasted Prime Minister Mark Carney for keeping him on the ballot.

Chiang has since apologized for his suggestion on both social media and personally to Tay.

“Today, I spoke with Joseph Tay, the Conservative candidate for Don Valley North, to personally apologize for the comments that I made this past January,” he wrote in a March 30 X post.

 

“It was a terrible lapse of judgement. I recognize the severity of the statement and I am deeply disappointed in myself,” he continued.

Carney has said remarkably little regarding the situation. First, he refused to fire the Liberal candidate, referring to Chiang’s statement as a “terrible lapse of judgment.”

“He’s made his apology. He’s made it to the public, he’s made it to the individual concerned, he’s made it directly to me, and he’s going to continue with his candidacy,” Carney said. “He has my confidence.”

Then, following the announcement of Chaing’s resignation, Carney told reporters that it was time to “move on” and that he would “leave it at that.”

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