Five face fraud charges

Author: Frank Matys

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Five men face fraud-related charges in connection with Casino Rama, police report. A joint investigation included the OPP's organized crime bureau and casino enforecement unit.

Money laundering and fraud are among the charges facing five people arrested amid allegations of organized crime.
“There will be a raft of victims,” predicted Rama Police Service Chief Dave Whitlow.
Five males are in custody and are facing numerous charges, including money laundering, fraud, possession of credit card data, and uttering forged documents.
The arrests follow a joint investigation involving the Rama Police Service, the OPP’s casino enforcement unit, the Orillia OPP Crime Unit, the Asian Organized Crime unit, and the OPP Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau.
While details of what prompted the investigation remain hazy, Whitlow said police arrested “some people related to fraud and credit card stuff.
“Something happened in relation to the casino in the morning and our folks got involved,” added Whitlow. “We made arrests related to credit card fraud. Then there was another group that were related that we got as well.”
The initial arrests came on the morning of May 6, and led to additional arrests later that day, he said.
Whitlow said the second group of suspects was arrested in the Orillia area, adding that others could be involved.
“The investigation swelled from there and becomes a group that was involved with (the first arrests),” Whitlow said. “That becomes organized crime.”
Whitlow said the arrested suspects were using falsified credit cards bearing the personal information of others.
How that information was used remains unknown, and will be determined through an investigation that is likely to prove lengthy, he said.
“Since everything they have is fraudulent, you don’t know who they are,” he said. “By the time we arrest these folks, it is hard to identify what may be true and what may not be.
“It very well could relate to the casino, but I’m not sure of that,” he added. “It was a fairly large-scale thing that (investigators) are still into.”
A casino official who spoke with Orillia Today was unaware of the investigation.
The area gaming facility has been the target of criminal activity in the past, and fell victim to an international card-cheating scam that bilked casinos out of millions of dollars.
Among those netted in that investigation were employees of the local casino.