'Some of the toughest cases': Investment fraud running rampant across Canada

Investment scams on the rise Police report investment scams are on the rise, and Ontario is a prime target. CTV's Austin Lee explains.

Investment scams are nothing new, but over the past few years, they have exploded across Canada.

According to data from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC), the amount of money reported lost to investment scams has multiplied by nearly 20 times from 2019 to 2023.

"Unfortunately, investment scams have been one of the main factors in the sharp increase in reported money loss to the CAFC in the last few years,” said Jeff Horncastle, a CAFC spokesperson in an email to CTV News.

"The CAFC estimates that over 50 per cent of investment fraud reports and money loss are associated to fraudulent crypto investment platforms."

The CAFC says they received 489 reports of investment fraud from 388 Canadian victims, totalling more than $15.7 million in 2019.

In 2023, the centre received 4,010 reports from 3,631 victims for a total of $309.3 million.

"Typical investment frauds offer get rich quick opportunities and higher than normal returns. These frauds often result in investors losing most, or all, of their money," said Horncastle.

“The majority of the investment scam reports involve Canadians investing in cryptocurrency after seeing a deceptive advertisement online.”

Statistics specifically for Ontario paint a similar picture in terms of the growing issue of investment scams. In 2019 the CAFC received 145 reports from 124 victims totalling a little more than $4.5 million

Four years later, that annual total has swelled to 1,341 reports with nearly $111.3 million in losses.

"Ontarians are giving money away at an alarming rate and its large sums," said Det. Shaun Wahbeh with the Ottawa Police Services (OPS) Organized Fraud Section.

According to OPS, an average of one or two cases of investment fraud are reported in the capital every single day.

"These are people that are reporting. Frauds tend to go unreported because of embarrassment, shame or people just want to forget about it," said Wahbeh.

"They average from $50,000 to the highest, which is $4 million."

For those who have fallen victim of investment scams, the situation can be devastating.

Victoria Lloyd and her husband Doug were recently robbed of more than $177,000 through a line of credit in a cryptocurrency scam.

"It’s just horrible. You can’t even sleep at night. I’ve been having a hard time sleeping for the last couple of months now," said Victoria Lloyd.

"It’s just not fair that we worked for all of our lives. I worked for almost 40 years in the government and now all of our money is going to pay the interest on this line of credit that somebody else took."

The Lloyd’s have filed a police report, but they aren’t overly hopeful that they will recoup that money.

OPS says investment fraud cases, specifically those involving cryptocurrency, are incredibly difficult cases to crack.

"As law enforcement, we’re able to trace it if it’s within a short window because it’s virtual money so it jumps from wallet, to wallet, to wallet," said Wahbeh.

“These are some of the toughest cases because the money rarely stays in our jurisdiction."

Wahbeh adds that the money often ends up overseas. He says countries like Russia and Nigeria are two of the primary landing spots for these types of scams.

"There are certain countries that don’t play well with Canada, and there are certain countries that don’t have any laws at all when it comes to currency or cybercrime, so it falls into the cracks."

The CAFC says common methods of solicitation used by fraudsters include:

The CAFC has provided a list of warning signs and tips on how to protect yourself from investment fraud: