Grandparent scams steal millions from seniors. Organized crime made Montreal a hotbed for them [Video]

CBC News is investigating grandparent scams and their link to Montreal. This story is part one of a three-part series. 

In June 2024, eight young men and women were working the phones inside a squat, two-storey building next to Lakeshore Road in Pointe-Claire, a suburb in Montreal’s West Island, when police officers stormed in. 

In an indictment unsealed earlier this month, Michael Drescher, the district attorney of Vermont, said the group was caught in the act that day. They were placing phone calls to “elderly victims in Virginia,” pretending to be their grandkids and asking for money. 

Drescher alleged that the group, and 17 other Canadians — nearly all from the Montreal area, and many from the West Island suburbs — was part of an elaborate international scam network that defrauded hundreds of American seniors out of a total of more than $21 million US. 

The indictment details how the …