FREDERIC SERRE
The 1510 West
Another step to dismantle a major scamming network based in Pointe Claire was taken July 4, when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI announced a major arrest – that of the alleged ringleader, Gareth West, who had been on the run ever since June 2024, when police swooped in on two call centres in the region and arrested 25 Canadians, including 11 West Islanders.
And while the RCMP and FBI said they were happy to finally get their hands on West, 38, the hunt for the last remaining leader of the gang — Jimmy Ylimaki of Notre Dame de l’Île Perrot — continues.
West, of Burlington, Ont., was captured by RCMP and Sûreté du Québec officers in the town of St. Colomban in the Laurentians. West and Ylimaki are alleged to have led a gang of scammers who targeted elderly American citizens in Vermont and 44 other states and bilked them out of $30 million through a so-called Grandparent Scam. The telephone scams, in which the suspects claimed to be grandchildren in need of quick bail money after an arrest, originated in call centres in commercial buildings in Pointe Claire and Vaudreuil-Dorion.
The arrests and the names of the suspects were announced on March 4 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont and sent shockwaves across the West Island. The West Islanders now facing extradition to the U.S. are residents of Pointe Claire, Pierrefonds, Kirkland, Dollard des Ormeaux and Ste. Geneviève. If convicted, the accused could face between 20 and 40 years in a U.S. penitentiary.
According to Cpl. Erique Gasse of the RCMP, the scammers victimized more than 600 seniors in the U.S. From their call centres, the fraudsters posed as the victims’ grandsons or granddaughters, leading them to believe that they had been involved in an accident with injuries, that they were being held in custody, or that they needed a large sum of money to obtain bail pending the outcome of legal proceedings.
The scammers relied on the services of collectors, one of whose bosses was based in Panama, and travelled throughout the U.S. to collect the money handed over in good faith by vulnerable victims, Gasse said. While the raids took place in June 2024, the announcement of charges against the suspects was made last March.
Taxes and services were reportedly not paid for West’s properties in Ontario, which were repossessed by the bank, while he was on the run. Meanwhile, another of his buildings was closed by the fire department due to construction defects. The RCMP alleges West earned more than $10 million from the phone scam.