Vaughan
October 03, 2007 08:49 PM
By: Joe Fantauzzi
A fire at a Concord contracting company has led police to what is believed to be the largest bust related to debit card fraud in Canadian history.
Vaughan firefighters were called to Sava Contracting, at 101 Freshway Dr., in the Creditstone Road and Hwy. 7 area, for a vehicle fire Tuesday.
As York Regional Police officers and firefighters checked the building for injured people, they found a locked room filled with credit card forgery gear. A man was arrested at the scene.
Later, armed with a warrant, police found more than 3,000 forged debit cards in various stages of completion and hundreds of stolen point-of-sale pinpad terminals, valued at about $250,000.
Police allege the terminals were being altered. About $200,000 worth of equipment was found in two rooms, one used as an electronics assembly line and the other for card manufacturing.
Police called the laboratory “sophisticated and well-equipped” and said it may have been used as recently as Tuesday.
If the fake cards had been put into circulation, losses could have been in the millions of dollars, police say.
Petre Timis, 40, of Toronto, is charged with possession of instruments used in forging or falsifying credit cards, forgery of credit card, unauthorized use of credit card data, fraud over $5,000 and possession of property obtained by crime.