An Irish woman lost €1,000,000 over the course of eight months - as a top Garda sergeant told the Irish Mirror that the public need to be "very wary" of getting caught in investment frauds.
A total of €12.4 million has been reported so far to have been lost to investment fraud in 2021 by members of the public.
The Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) are tasked with investigating these reports - with Detective Superintendent Michael Cryan telling the Irish Mirror that the numbers are "going the wrong way."
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He said: "Fraud has expanded dramatically over the last two years and Covid has added to that. The victims have had money because they’ve been saving in Covid lockdown times, and they go online looking for information on crypto. They go onto these websites and these are fake websites.
“They go on, put in their details and get a cold call from a company which offers them all sorts of returns and profit margins and that kind of stuff. Then they invest more money because they think they’re doing so well - but when they go to cash it out, suddenly it’s gone and they realise it’s fraud."
Pop-up ads also represent a huge avenue for criminals to sell fraud schemes, with Detective Superintendent Cryan noting that links which appear to be endorsed by a celebrity are often promoted without the celebrity even knowing about it.
There's also a romance aspect to some of the scams, with stats showing that females are more liable to fall for scam profiles on dating sites, and end up investing money in something to "help out."
Nearly half of the victims in investment fraud are over 55 years old - something that the GNECB believe is down to that being the age group that has the most money to invest in the schemes.
"Younger people fall for online scams probably more so through the likes of smishing and online banking. Younger people trust the internet and what’s on it.
"Investment fraud sees people of an older age who have money and they want to invest. They want quick returns and perhaps they’re taking risks. They could’ve been taking risks all their lives and that’s might how they have money in the first place.” Detective Superintendent Cryan added.
The GNECB have faced a couple of issues due to the underreporting of instances of fraud from victims.
They believe that it's partially down to some people not wanting others to know they've been stung.
"Maybe it's that they're afraid of people finding out, maybe it's because they don't want people to know they have that kind of money to invest. Maybe it's because they don't want the taxman to know.
“There was a scam in 2020 where a victim lost €1,000,000 over a six to eight month period. A lot of these scams last months or even years," Detective Superintendent Cryan revealed.
He also pinpointed what he believed to be the biggest issue which leads people to fall into the criminal's traps.
"The problem with crypto, is that a lot of people over 50 we’ll say - they don’t know what it is or what they’re investing.
"They don't know that it’s not regulated, they don’t know what blockchains, what online wallets are. Do you get actual coins? Do they get a bitcoin? A lot don’t seem to understand what crypto investment is and have no understanding as to how up-and-down it can be. They have no consumer protection, it is completely unregulated.
"They’re going in blind and gambling. That’s the bigger concern. They’re being pushed into this by these salesmen on the phone and ‘once-in-a-lifetime offers’ and it’s only when they realise that they’ve been scammed and then they don’t want to accept they’ve been scammed. Some people have hired other fraudsters to try and get money back from the original fraudsters."
It isn't just an Irish problem either.
An international operation undertaken by Europol earlier this week saw more than 100 people arrested in Latvia and Lithuania for running a fraud scheme which was earning around about €3 million a month.
"Think of what those lads were making in the UK, Germany, other areas. It’s astronomical money. These are professional criminals and they know what they are doing." Detective Superintendent Cyran added.
He also made one big plea to the Irish public if they are thinking about investing.
"Get independent, legal advice and heed that advice. Be wary and careful of pop-up ads, links, texts. Be wary if you’re offered huge return like a 20% profit in a year. That won't happen. Check the central bank registry to see if the company is being tracked by them."
"At the end of the day, it’s all theft. And there's no doubt about it, it's (the stats) are going the wrong way. There’s lots of red flags for people who want to find them. If it seems too good to be true - it probably is."
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