Toronto police say they have arrested 10 people and laid more than 100 charges in a wide-reaching SIM swap scam. A SIM card is shown in this photo taken on June 10 in London. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Kelvin Chan
Toronto police say they have arrested 10 people and laid more than 100 charges in a wide-reaching SIM swap scam.
Investigators say more than 1,500 cellular accounts throughout Canada were compromised, resulting in more than $1 million in combined losses to victims, telecom companies and financial institutions.
Det. David Coffey from the Toronto police Financial Crimes Unit says the SIM swap scam targets a weakness in two-factor authentication to take over an unsuspecting victim’s cellphone account, either by impersonating the customer at a cellphone store or otherwise tricking a mobile carrier into switching the victim’s phone number to another SIM card.
Once criminals gain access to an account, they can receive emails and texts about password recovery or changes and use that to compromise the victim’s bank accounts or social media profiles.
Coffey says police seized more than 400 pieces of fake identification after search warrants were executed as part of the investigation dubbed “Project Disrupt,” which began in June 2023.
Police say two additional suspects are on the run, and police are asking anyone with information that might lead to their arrests to come forward.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2024.
