![]() ![]() Initially, she beat herself up for falling victim to the fraud. "I've never experienced such a horrible crime."Īs the devastation settled in, Zheng replayed what had happened over and over in her mind. Over the next two weeks, she sent three more wire transfers to Hong Kong, through three different banks, draining every cent her elderly father had saved over his lifetime and sent to her.īut after her final payment, when no money was left to send, the fraudsters disappeared. So, in "total fear," she made her way to a Royal Bank branch on May 16, 2018, and wired $60,000 to the fraudsters. Zheng moved to Canada in 2006 and became a citizen in 2010 but still remembered what she describes as an authoritarian regime back in China. 'I've never experienced such a horrible crime' They claimed the ICAC would inspect Zheng's money and return it once investigators were satisfied she wasn't part of an organized crime ring. The criminals instructed Zheng not to go online, telling her they were with the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in Hong Kong - an actual organization created to stem government corruption - and were tracking her every move. "So I trust everything is true."įraudsters sent Zheng this fake police warrant, threatening to throw her in a Hong Kong jail. "I totally believed these are international Chinese police calling me," said Zheng, adding that the call appeared to be coming from 110, an emergency number in China similar to 911. He texted her a fake arrest warrant, that included the photo from her driver's licence. The "investigator" told Zheng she would be arrested, sent to Hong Kong and thrown in jail indefinitely if she didn't co-operate. The supposed consulate employee told Zheng she was transferring the call to a Hong Kong police investigator, who was also in on the scam and accused her of selling her bank account information to criminals. "A secondary check … would go a long way to protecting people." How the fraudsters preyed "They're the last line of defence," said Iafolla, an assistant professor of criminology at Saint Mary's University in Halifax. It's a crime, Zheng argues, that could have been prevented if the banks had better systems in place to protect customers - and financial fraud expert Vanessa Iafolla agrees. ![]() "I had suicidal plans," she confided, explaining that the May 2018 crime affected her so badly she is only now able to speak publicly about it. Got a story? Contact Erica and the Go Public team.It was a scammer - the beginning of an elaborate wire transfer fraud that has taken both her savings and an enormous toll on her mental health. Only it wasn't actually an employee at the consulate. "I was very surprised she had my driver's licence number, because it was only one month old," Zheng told Go Public. The caller said she was an employee at the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver, read off Zheng's driver's licence number, and told her she was a suspect in an international money-laundering scam. ![]() The 43-year-old was rushing to her job, selling jewelry behind the counter in a downtown Vancouver department store, when her cellphone rang. Vivien Zheng says she will never forget the phone call that led to losing her family's entire life savings - $340,000. ![]()
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