Two men from Laval are part of a trio of suspects arrested by York Regional Police north of Toronto earlier this week on suspicions they defrauded a 73-year-old woman out of $5,000 as participants in a “grandparent scam.”
Dikran Artin Khano, 22, and Kasson Roker, 19, both from Laval, and Kaouane Rami, 21, of no fixed address, are charged with fraud over $5,000, possession of property obtained by crime, and extortion.
Roker and Rami are also charged with failing to comply with a court order.
According to the York Regional Police, the suspects, who contacted the woman by phone while claiming to be law enforcement officials, told her that her grandson was in jail and that he desperately needed $9,000 in order to be released.
The YRP alleges the suspects went to the victim’s residence, where two of them waited in a vehicle while a third collected $5,000 from her.
After the suspects left, the victim received a phone call informing her that she had to pay $4,000 more.
The investigators were later able to locate the vehicle in nearby Brampton and stop the scam before any more money was taken from the elderly woman.