Fraudulent pot orders cost thousands
A White Point man allegedly racked up thousands of dollars' worth of NSLC mail-order pot on other people’s credit cards before police caught up to the scam.
A loss prevention officer with the provincial Crown corporation that controls sales of booze and recreational cannabis in Nova Scotia first reported the fraud to Halifax Regional Police in January, Liverpool RCMP Const. Vladimir Dounin said in his application for a warrant in the case.
“The NSLC had received 33 online orders from a number of different credit card holders for cannabis products,” Dounin said.
The liquor corporation coughed up “a spreadsheet and transaction details of 25 credit card chargebacks to the NSLC from Sept. 13, 2021 to Oct. 13, 2021,” the investigator said in information to obtain a warrant filed at Bridgewater provincial court.
Chargebacks are when the bank reverses payment on credit card purchases.
The fraudster used credit cards issued to other people by the Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia, TD, Collabria Financial Services, and Bank of America to order the ganga.
SAME NAME ON ALL THE ORDERS
“All of the orders contained the same billing and shipping information,” Dounin said.
“The name on the orders was Dave Croft.”
The dope was delivered to a home on M Smith Road in Queens County.
“The credit card purchases were initially accepted but were later refused, with the NSLC being held responsible for 25 chargeback costs totaling $6,828.14,” said the investigator.
Police contacted the operations manager at Metro Green, the Guildford Avenue outfit in Burnside that handles the NSLC’S pot orders.
“Canada Post picked up the orders from the Metro Green warehouse,” Dounin said.
“The orders were then sealed on the Canada Post truck and forwarded to their destination.”
'THE SIGNATURE BLOCK IS BLANK'
The investigator eyeballed the information about the “fraudulent transactions” and noticed a frequent difference between the billing name used and the shipping name.
“All of the billing names were ‘David Croft,’ whereas the shipping names were ‘Dave Croft’ or ‘David Croft,’” he said, noting the address was always the same place on M Smith Road.
Dounin used Canada Post’s tracking system which showed the marijuana orders had been delivered to that address.
Then he examined delivery confirmations for the dope.
“The signatory name is a D Croft but the signature block is blank,” Dounin said, noting that “shipping companies have not been utilizing delivery signatures as a result of policies implemented to control the spread of COVID.”
The Mountie asked the NSLC’S loss prevention officer to figure out “if there was a way to trace the origin of the fraudulent purchases” using the Internet Protocol address from the transaction records.
NO IP ADDRESS FOR BUYER
“An IP address is a string of numbers that is assigned to a device accessing the internet and may be useful for determining the identity and geographical location of the internet service provider and the account holder of the device,” Dounin said.
But, as it turns out, the NSLC didn’t capture any of the buyer’s IP addresses for the transactions.
On July 27, the NSLC’S loss prevention officer contacted the Mountie, reporting “a string of new online transactions” received under Dave Croft’s name, said the investigator.
“The NSLC had not yet received chargebacks from the involved credit cards but were expecting them.”
Four different credit cards under different names had been used to make 19 more cannabis orders.
“All 19 transactions had Dave Croft as the receiving name,” and listed the same street address, phone number and email.
Dounin checked the address where the pot was being delivered on a police database. Several people with the last name of Croft were living at the home, including David Edward Croft.
'WELL KNOWN TO POLICE'
He’s “very well known to police for his involvement in criminal activities including forgery, break and enter, and possession of property obtained by crime,” said the investigator.
“David Croft is presently serving a conditional sentence order with a nightly curfew starting at 10 p.m. at the residence until November 2022,” Dounin said.
A judge sentenced the same 27-year-old man last year for theft over $5,000, said the Mountie.
“None of the other occupants (of his home) are known for their involvement in fraud or similar criminal activities.”
Then on Aug. 8, a woman contacted the NSLC to report her credit card had recently been stolen and used to order seven more shipments of cannabis to Croft’s address.
Dounin told a justice of the peace he wanted to search the home after 10 p.m. “to maximize the likelihood of locating David Croft with his electronic communication devices.”
He was expecting to find computer gear used to make the fraudulent cannabis orders, and packaging for the pot.
Dounin also wanted to get his hands on David Croft’s employment information from last year on. That “will provide a starting point to determine if the credit card data used in this fraud scheme is being obtained by the occupants of the residence from their places of work.”
During the Aug. 21 search, police seized two mobile phones, a Western Digital gaming drive, a Sony Playstation 4, a social insurance card belonging to someone with another last name and a bulletproof vest.
Croft – who has a dozen convictions dating back to 2015 -- is now facing charges for possession of property obtained by crime and fraudulently using another person’s credit card.
He’s slated to appear Nov. 9 in Bridgewater provincial court.