I have come across way too many Montrealers involved with phone fraud operations here, which hopefully have all been eliminated by now in a series of high-profile busts and extraditions.
So I took some time away from staring at the ceiling this afternoon to make a list of some of these shady characters.
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-The male stripper from Verdun: A thirty-ish welfare recipient who once told me that he was gainfully employed at Club 281 (I didn't go down to check if this was true, although he didn't seem to be a particularly exceptional specimen from the parts I saw).
He strode with the demeanour of a street hustler, was constantly behind on his rent (I was his long-suffering landlord) and had an infuriating habit of paying odd sums here while I was in the middle of doing some fix-it task, that made it difficult to keep an accurate tally on how much he owed. Quite a clever trick really.
One day during a bus strike he asked me to give him a lift to his phone fraud job in Ville St. Laurent. He was quite open about it. I agreed but only if he agreed to help me scrap an old fridge by bringing it downstairs.
The fridge turned out to be an unwieldy 350 lb bastard and both of us were cursing all the way down the three storeys, especially him.
On the drive to his work he brazenly boasted about how he was a particularly good phone fraud guy and would sometimes get the credit card numbers he needed simply by yelling at the old folks who had a hard time understanding his nuanced pitch.
"GET YOUR CREDIT CARD NOW AND READ ME THE NUMBER!" he said was one of his more successful techniques.
When the ringleader was later cited in a media report as having been heard on a wiretap laughing aloud with one particularly ballsy phone fraud guy's quips, I'm getting the sense that it was this guy.
(In case you're wondering why I didn't turn him in, it's because at that point had assumed everything he told me was bullshit).
Swarthy NDG family guy with a sweet local wife and a couple of young kids who I'd see at social gatherings. He'd be there physically at these kiddie events but virtually never stop talking into his bluetooth earpiece phone. So his level of douchiness was pretty much topping out the red arrow on the meter but hell I didn't really care to talk to him anyway.
Things were looking up for this guy upon the surface, he bought a house in NDG and his wife and kids were real sweet but he was arrested and sentenced and there was some sense of trepidation in explaining to the kids where daddy went.
Trashy son of a prince Ever meet someone so sweet and gentle and then meet their kid who is an absolute lout? Well an elderly Liverpudlian grandpa living in an dodgy highway-side upper duplex fit that bill. He was a super guy, quiet and interesting (Told me that Gerry Matticks had financed his home) but his son who worked in a phone joint was loud and fractious with his separation-new-girlfriend-I've-got-the-kid-this-weekend stuff. I have no proof that the younger guy was into phone fraud but a few conversations I overheard might have hinted at that, although he might also have been entirely legit.
One friend-of-a-friend (not on this list) explained his motivation to continue in phone fraud to a mutual acquaintance: "There was a ton of money in it, it was too hard to say no."
So I took some time away from staring at the ceiling this afternoon to make a list of some of these shady characters.
He strode with the demeanour of a street hustler, was constantly behind on his rent (I was his long-suffering landlord) and had an infuriating habit of paying odd sums here while I was in the middle of doing some fix-it task, that made it difficult to keep an accurate tally on how much he owed. Quite a clever trick really.
One day during a bus strike he asked me to give him a lift to his phone fraud job in Ville St. Laurent. He was quite open about it. I agreed but only if he agreed to help me scrap an old fridge by bringing it downstairs.
The fridge turned out to be an unwieldy 350 lb bastard and both of us were cursing all the way down the three storeys, especially him.
On the drive to his work he brazenly boasted about how he was a particularly good phone fraud guy and would sometimes get the credit card numbers he needed simply by yelling at the old folks who had a hard time understanding his nuanced pitch.
"GET YOUR CREDIT CARD NOW AND READ ME THE NUMBER!" he said was one of his more successful techniques.
When the ringleader was later cited in a media report as having been heard on a wiretap laughing aloud with one particularly ballsy phone fraud guy's quips, I'm getting the sense that it was this guy.
(In case you're wondering why I didn't turn him in, it's because at that point had assumed everything he told me was bullshit).
Swarthy NDG family guy with a sweet local wife and a couple of young kids who I'd see at social gatherings. He'd be there physically at these kiddie events but virtually never stop talking into his bluetooth earpiece phone. So his level of douchiness was pretty much topping out the red arrow on the meter but hell I didn't really care to talk to him anyway.
Things were looking up for this guy upon the surface, he bought a house in NDG and his wife and kids were real sweet but he was arrested and sentenced and there was some sense of trepidation in explaining to the kids where daddy went.
Trashy son of a prince Ever meet someone so sweet and gentle and then meet their kid who is an absolute lout? Well an elderly Liverpudlian grandpa living in an dodgy highway-side upper duplex fit that bill. He was a super guy, quiet and interesting (Told me that Gerry Matticks had financed his home) but his son who worked in a phone joint was loud and fractious with his separation-new-girlfriend-I've-got-the-kid-this-weekend stuff. I have no proof that the younger guy was into phone fraud but a few conversations I overheard might have hinted at that, although he might also have been entirely legit.
One friend-of-a-friend (not on this list) explained his motivation to continue in phone fraud to a mutual acquaintance: "There was a ton of money in it, it was too hard to say no."