Woman gets call about 'immigration' issue just before men tried to enter her home

Police say a woman in Lakeshore, Ont., recently got a call demanding she leave her home to resolve an issue involving animmigration warrant shortly before she heard people trying to break into her garage.

• Scam artist demands payment from police officer's wife to prevent 'deportation'

LaSalle police are warning the public about the incident in hopes of preventing anyone from falling victim to the apparent scam attempt.

"I haven't heard of any similar scam where they have actually tried to get you out of your house, so they could come in the house and do whatever,"said LaSalle police Const. Harbinder Gill in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "And that's why it's so alarming in nature."

Gill said it was the OPP that received the call about the incident in Lakeshore. Investigators thenreached out to the nearbyLaSalle police to see if similar incidents had occurred in that community.

The incident reported to the OPP occurred last week. That's when someone called the woman, who Gill said is of South Asian descent, claiming to be an RCMP officer.

The purported officer transferred the woman to another voice, a female who also claimed to be an RCMP officer.

'This is just...despicable'

Both voices on the line had what the woman described as South Asian accents.

Gill suspects the perpetrators were targeting a member of their own community.

"This lady was particularly upset about that as well, as am I I'm from that community as well and this is just, to put it bluntly, despicable," he said.

This second voice told the woman to immediately go to a local RCMP detachment to deal with the issue. The caller also inquired how long it would take her to get there.

The woman told the caller she would leave her home in five minutes to go to the police station. But after hanging up the phone, she felt the call was likely a scam and she did not go.

A short time later, the woman said she heard her garage door rattling.

Police say she heard some male voices and then saw some individuals run to a nearbyminivan and drive away.

Three people were in the van and the woman believes that at least two of these individuals were male.

The vehicle is believed to have been a silver-coloured Dodge Caravan.

The incident happened during the day.

"Because of the whole thing going down so quickly [the woman] was unable to get a [licence] plate number for the vehicle," said Gill.

Gill said that anyone receiving such a call should consider getting in touch with police.

"If you get a call like this, call us," he said.