By KEVIN BERGER, Local Journalism Initiative
When he was stationed in North Battleford, Warman RCMP Staff Sgt. Jason Teniuk says he used to go in to work on Monday morning and immediately wanted to know how many of his officers were injured over the weekend.
“That was what kept me up at night,” he said. “Now I have to go in on Monday morning and find out how many people are sitting in my lobby that have been scammed out of…thousands of dollars.
“It is absolutely a nightmare, and it’s an epidemic, and that’s why we’re here,” added Teniuk, speaking to a crowd of about 25 people at the Osler Senior Centre on June 9.
Recently, the Warman RCMP hosted a series of presentations to help combat the upsurge in fraud cases being seen throughout the detachment.
In addition to Osler, similar presentations were held in Asquith on June 4, Warman on June 18 and Martensville on June 24.
During these presentations, Teniuk has been joined by Sgt. Derek Sawatzky of the Warman RCMP, as well as two representatives of local banks, Martha Giesbrecht of the Affinity Credit Union and Kelly Turner of the Royal Bank of Canada.
During the workshop in Osler, Teniuk began by listing some statistics to give the audience an idea of the problem.
In 2024, there were 34,621 confirmed cases of fraud in Canada, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. In total, Canadians lost $638 million to fraud, an increase of about $60 million from the year before.
In the Warman detachment alone, the number of frauds has risen from 148 in 2023 to 182 in 2024. And as of June 9, the number of frauds stood at 73 for 2025.
“If we’re going to continue on this pace, we’re going to be around that 200 mark. So you can see we’re incrementally going up a lot,” Teniuk said.
And, as pointed out by Giesbrecht and Turner, those are just the reported frauds; they see many more people coming into their branches who have been defrauded or are being actively scammed.
In terms of where these scams are coming from, Teniuk said the top source is Russia, which has some of the biggest cybercrime syndicates.
They are followed closely by Ukraine, with China and the U.S. ranking third and fourth.
Of course, knowing where scams are originating does not help police in tackling the problem. Teniuk pointed out that fraud investigations are extremely complex and time-consuming, and police resources are often stretched because of the large detachment area.
Second, the international nature of these frauds limits the RCMP’s jurisdiction, as many foreign countries simply do not recognize Canadian law.
Sawatzky also pointed out that money is often funneled through foreign exchanges and cryptocurrencies.
“It is extremely rare for money to be intercepted and recovered. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it in 25 years,” Sawatzky said.
Giesbrecht noted that if you are in a situation where you have sent money through your bank or credit union, but feel you shouldn’t, such as through an e-transfer, it may be possible to intercept that transaction if you act very quickly.
“I have seen it happen, but I’ve seen plenty of times where it didn’t,” she noted.
PREVENTING FRAUD
While the nature of fraud is ever-changing and becoming more sophisticated thanks to evolving technology, Sawatzky pointed out they do have some common features.
First, most fraudsters attempt to pressure the target to act immediately, such as the classic grandparent scam in which victims are pressured to cough up money quickly to fund a grandchild’s bail or to pay lawyer fees.
“Nothing needs to be that quick. If they’re in jail, they’re still going to be in jail in a half-hour. If they’re at the border and being held up at customs, they’re going to be sitting in a holding cell at customs a half-hour later,” Teniuk said.
Next, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, said Sawatzky. Prize scams are a common example of this, with the targets being asked to contribute a small sum of money in order to receive some prize from a lottery or draw.
Many fraudsters are also after a target’s personal information, Sawatzky said, and they commonly resort to scare tactics like threats if their targets do not comply.
As well, most frauds start with an unsolicited contact, like a phone call or a pop-up ad on your computer advertising a product or service you didn’t ask for.
A variation on this is the pop-up informing the user that their computer has been infected with a virus or that they have been caught doing illegal activities, and that they need to follow the fraudster’s directions.
Turner said that in this situation, the best thing to do is to shut down the computer and take it a reputable repair shop.
The presentation then delved into various examples of scams, such as investment frauds. Teniuk relayed the story of one man who, upon seeing a fake ad featuring billionaire Elon Musk, decided to put some money into an online investment opportunity.
After seeing some good initial returns and meeting with a representative of the “investment firm,” the man ended up investing $750,000, which was all lost.
Romance scams, wherein the fraudster pretends to be someone else, are also becoming more common. Teniuk said there is a local resident who believed he was corresponding with Lisa Kelly of the TV show Ice Road Truckers, and began racking up credit card debt in order to send her thousands of dollars.
The sheer breadth and variety of different frauds are staggering, but people can guard themselves in a few common ways: first, be extremely careful about giving out personal information, particularly to an unsolicited caller.
Asking lots of questions is also key, as is looking for red flags such as unusual grammar or spelling on e-mails and websites.
Giesbrecht and Turner recommended monitoring your accounts for unusual activity and being careful of posting any information online; for instance, scammers are now watching for obituaries posted on the Internet so they can learn of widows or widowers they can target in their most vulnerable times.
Finally, don’t be afraid to be rude, and always be skeptical of everything. And if you’re really unsure about something, come talk to the police.
“I would rather spend five minutes with you than spend the next three days trying to investigate where all your money went to. That’s a far better use of our time, as far as I’m concerned,” Teniuk said.
Warman RCMP Sgt. Derek Sawatzky, Staff Sgt. Jason Teniuk, Affinity Credit Union representative Martha Giesbrecht and Royal Bank representative Kelly Turner address the meeting in Osler on June 9.