One of the more disturbing stories to emerge in 2023 was a series of bomb threats made against schools and public services, mostly in northern and eastern Ontario.
By the end of the year, a man had been arrested, in, of all places, Morocco. It seems Belgian police were investigating a similar set of crimes and worked with the Ontario Provincial Police to apprehend him. It must be noted that to date, this case has not been through the courts.
All we can do is speculate about the possible motive, keeping in mind a number of the bomb threats included a demand for money in exchange for information about the “bombs.” No explosive devices were found.
The whole mess sounds like an attempt to extort money, not unlike freezing hospital and municipal computers and holding them for ransom.
An untold number of individuals, including local residents, have lost huge amounts of money in similar scams.
One might speculate that individuals and public organizations are being targeted because they are less likely than big businesses to have effective security protections in place. These require a level of expertise that comes with a hefty price tag.
One might also speculate it could have something to do with the fact Canada tends not to prosecute cybercriminals with offshore connections (according to a CBC Marketplace investigation).
As stated in a 2023 CBC story, Canadians lost $416 million to fraud the previous year. One reason is lack of police resources – it’s expensive and difficult to go after criminals in foreign countries, and people tend to have more sympathy for victims of violent crime than fraud, meaning the former gets more funding and public attention.
One wonders how much money was lost to armed robbers last year, compared to fraud.
However, violent crimes are easier for political leaders and law enforcement officials to understand. The number of Canadians who can wrap their minds around such things as cryptocurrency scams and cybercrime is limited, with experts tending to be employed by multinational corporations at really high salaries, or taking an extended vacation in some tropical paradise with no extradition.
All of us prefer to stay within our comfort zone; political and law enforcement leaders are no different. In many ways, they have more to lose than the guy who hangs around the office water cooler sharing his solution to the latest crime wave. “We have no clue what to do about your missing million dollars; the person who took it knows more about computers than we do,” sounds nowhere near as good as, “We are focusing our resources on stopping armed robberies.”
With our incomes and savings in freefall and costs of living skyrocketing, we are fed up with Canada being regarded by the world’s criminals as a cash cow waiting to be milked. We are furious that our most vulnerable citizens, charities and organizations are in constant danger of attack; that our personal information is a commodity to be bought and sold on the dark web; that finances and lives are being ruined with little recourse for victims.
If the same amount of money lost to scammers with offshore connections were being stolen by masked robbers, it would be regarded as a crime wave worthy of major attention.
If foreign criminals were openly attacking hospital and government computer systems in the name of a political entity, it would be called terrorism.
The bottom line is, we want better protection from offshore cybercrime, fraud and other criminal activity than we have been getting.
We want our cars to come with built-in anti-theft measures; our computers to be safe to use by even the most naïve citizen; and our phones to be free of fake CRA agents, Visa security people and princes.
Elected officials take note: Let 2024 be the year that Canada gets serious about becoming a country not to mess with, instead of an easy target. We need to devote resources to where the danger is. Most of us are at far greater risk from cybercrime than from armed robbery.
