Police warn Manitoba is seeing an increase in cybercrime
CTV
A rise in cybercrime has police warning people to protect their personal information and email accounts.
A rise in cybercrime has police warning people to protect their personal information and email accounts.
Officers saw a spike in online fraud leading up to and during the pandemic – a trend that is showing no signs of slowing down.
“It is traditional frauds that have moved into an online environment where the criminal actors have an ever-expandable reach and an exponential number of targets, so it is definitely on the increase,” said Sgt. Trevor Thompson, supervisor of the Winnipeg Police Service’s Financial Crimes Unit. “We do see on a daily basis multiple reports of people that have been victimized in any number of fraudulent schemes.”
Thompson said most fraud now happens online — a trend that was exacerbated by the pandemic as people spent more time on the internet.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has received 29,294 reports of fraud as of Apr. 30 of this year. In 2021, a total of 106,875 reports were made for the entire year.
As of the end of April 2022, people had lost $163.9 million to fraud. A total of $380 million in losses were reported for the entirety of 2021.
Manitoba RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Paul Manaigre said there were 596 cybercrimes, which involved the use of a computer, reported to the Mounties in 2021 compared to 477 incidents in 2020.
