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SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2013
www.nanaimobulletin.com
NANAIMO
VOL. 25, NO. 14
scam targets debit terminals
I
Thieves disTracT cashiers during transactions. By Chris Bush ThE NEwS BULLETiN
Nanaimo Mounties are warning merchants to pay attention while taking customer transactions after several stores were bilked out of thousands of dollars. Several male suspects and at least one woman are involved in using transaction machine codes and a diversion tactic to draw store clerks’ attention away from debit machines long enough for the thefts to take place. Const. Gar y O’Brien, Nanaimo RCMP spokesman, said small stores with just one or two clerks on duty are prime targets. The scam plays out when two people enter a store and one suspect starts making a purchase with a debit card for something small, like a chocolate bar. “He comes in with a woman or somebody else and as he’s making the transaction for the chocolate bar the other person distracts the clerk,” O’Brien said. “What (the suspect) does at this point is he enters the merchant code ID, which he knows, and cancels the transaction. He rips off the cancellation printout and then overrides the transaction and enters a refund for up to $1,000 and credits his debit card. Once that is done, he goes back to the original transaction of
buying the chocolate bar.” The scam relies on the fact that many merchants have not bothered to change their debit machine’s original generic authorization code to a unique password known only to them. It’s the generic code that the suspects are allegedly using. Stores elsewhere on the Island have been hit and police are warning merchants to make sure they change their passcodes to prevent this kind of theft. “We figure we know who they are,” O’Brien said. “They’re from the Lower Mainland and they’re working the Island now. There have been several stores hit in Nanaimo already.” The first suspect is a Caucasian male, approximately 6’1” tall, in his early 30s. He has light brown hair, a goatee and tattoos on his upper arms. The second male is Caucasian, 5’5” tall in his early 20s. The taller male has been accompanied by a Caucasian woman about 5’5” tall with long blonde hair. She has been well dressed and on one occasion was wearing a black dress and carried a neon-red purse. The vehicle they were seen driving is a dark colour Lincoln Navigator. Anyone with information on these frauds or the people involved is asked to contact the Nanaimo RCMP at 250-754-2345 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.nanaimocrime stoppers.com. photos@nanaimobulletin.com
CHRIS HAMLYN/THe NewS BuLLeTIN
Mike van ham, president of sylvis, a New Westminster environmental consulting firm, displays two cuts of 10-year-old poplar trees – one, left, fertilized in biosolids after three years and one left to nature. sylvis teamed up with vancouver island University and the regional district of Nanaimo to manage biosolid application at viU’s Weigles road woodlot.
Fertilizer program increases growth of forest By Chris hamLyn ThE NEwS BULLETiN
While the poop is literally hitting the fan up at Vancouver Island University’s 1,700-hectare forest woodlot on Weigles Road in Nanaimo, the trees and their value in terms of lumber are growing in leaps and bounds. The university and the Regional District of Nanaimo partnered with Sylvis, a Lower Mainland environmental consulting company, to manage the roughly 4,000 tonnes of biosolids produced annually at the RDN’s pollution control centres in Nanaimo and French Creek to be used for VIU’s Biosolids
Fertilization Project. Originally used for cover at the regional landfill, the biosolids – a nutrient-rich, humus-like sludge that results from the treatment of liquid waste – has been applied to VIU’s woodlot since 2002 to enhance tree growth. Silvis became part of the project in February and Mike Van Ham, company president, calls it the ultimate in recycling. “So often we’re told we have to stop doing this or that … we simply have to discontinue something and that doesn’t solve anything,” he said. “What we’re doing is capturing the inherent value of the biosolid material and putting it back into
the environment to solve problems.” But the effect on a forest lacking quality conditions for growth is what is amazing VIU researchers, who documented tree growth from 50 to 400 per cent. “We’re right near the top of two watersheds. One way is the Benson Creek/Millstone watershed and the other is the Jump Creek watershed,” said Paul Lucas, VIU woodlands superintendent. “It’s known as a shedding site with not a lot of nutrients in the soil. On top of that, 10,000 years ago glaciers scraped this pretty smooth and left shale and sandstone soil.” u See ‘FERTILIZER’ /4
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