Two men get 15-month sentences in $192,000 fraud scheme

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Two men who pleaded guilty on Monday to playing roles in a large-scale fraud ring that targeted elderly people in Montreal received sentences they can serve in the community.

“It is lenient,” Quebec Court Judge Alexandra Marcil said of the 15-month sentence that Carl-Henri Moody, 22, of Terrebonne, ended up receiving at the Montreal courthouse. Under a joint proposal from prosecutors and defence, Moody can serve the sentence in the community with the first eight months involving house arrest.

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The judge also agreed to order Moody to perform 150 hours of community service.

Moody pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. He was part of a group that gathered more than $192,000 from elderly victims over a just matter of weeks during 2022.

Olivier-Emmanuel Tshinkenke, 23, of Mascouche, pleaded guilty to the same two charges on Monday. The two were part of a group that contacted 34 elderly people while pretending to be from a Desjardins financial institution.

In a statement issued in 2022, after Moody and Tshinkenke were arrested along with four other men, the Montreal police described how the fraud scheme worked: “(It consisted) first of all of phoning a vulnerable senior and making them believe there has been a fraudulent transaction on their bank card. Using an insistent tone, the false representative tells the victim that it is urgent to act to correct the situation and asks them to provide their personal identification number (PIN).

“The fraudster then tells the victim to insert their bank card inside an envelope and that a postman will pick up the envelope to bring it back to the financial institution. A uniformed (Canada Post) accomplice then takes over and quickly shows up at the victim’s residence to retrieve the envelope and leave.”

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The Montreal police investigation began during March 2022, after several people in Montreal North reported being the victims of fraud. The fraudsters used the victims’ debit cards to purchase mostly gift cards and prepaid credit cards.

Within two months, the Montreal police had six men, including Moody and Tshinkenke, under surveillance over the course of a dozen days during May and June 2022.

“The (six) suspects were seen meeting in the parking lot of a shopping centre in two or three cars. They would exchange envelopes received from the complainants. Some members of the group would then carry out transactions with cards obtained fraudulently. The others would head to the addresses targeted by the scheme and recover the envelopes from the complainants,” prosecutor Sarah-Audrey Daigneault said in court Monday while reading from a prepared statement.

Moody’s role was to use the victims’ debit cards to buy gift cards and prepaid credit cards. His role in the scheme involved 15 events with the victims losing a total of more than $25,000.

Daigneault said the victims were reimbursed by Desjardins and, as part of his sentence, Moody was ordered to pay $15,000 back to Desjardins over the next eight years.

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Tshinkenke pleaded guilty to the same charges on Monday, but he admitted he was linked to 16 events where victims lost a total of more than $49,000. He also received a 15-month sentence similar to Moody’s and was ordered to pay back $15,000 back to Desjardins over the next five years.

“His role was to simply be present with his friends. He was not the person who met with the (elderly victims) and he did not make transactions,” Daigneault said.

Defence lawyer Alexandre Goyette said Tshinkenke was seen accompanying the fraudsters while they purchased gift cards and prepaid credit cards.

“You are lucky, sir,” the judge told Tshinkenke. “I have never rejected a common suggestion in the past and I won’t reject this one today. If this was (part of a trial) before me (the sentence) would be different.”

In April, Moody’s twin brother, Carl-René Moody, described as the ringleader of the group, was sentenced to a 23-month prison term and was ordered to pay back $80,000. His sentence includes two years of probation, during which he is required to pay $16,000 to Desjardins. He is also required to pay a total of $64,000 to victims of his crimes over the next 10 years, at a rate of $8,000 per year.

The guilty pleas recorded on Monday closed the case against all six of the men who were arrested in 2022. Earlier this year, two of the men — Christian Michel Jean Baptiste, 21, and Kevin Gauthier Rolentzky, 23, both of Terrebonne — received sentences they can serve in the community and were ordered to pay back $8,000 and $10,000 respectively.

On Feb. 19, Sébastien Lespérance, 35, was sentenced to a 33-day prison term to be followed by 18 months of probation.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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