Urmet Tambre, head of the Northern Prefecture’s Anti-Crime Bureau, said scams are a new source of livelihood for organized criminal groups. “Criminals operate mainly abroad and we have caught the few who have tried to gain a foothold in Estonia. We are working with other countries to stop them. However, the procedures are long and if a call center is hit, one is opened the next day new. People themselves must be increasingly diligent in protecting their data and money,” Tambre added.
If we look at the scams that develop by category, last year 524 people fell victim to fraudulent calls, whose losses amounted to three million euros. In the fraudulent calls, the scammers presented themselves as police officers, bank representatives or employees of another institution. These calls are made as from numbers with an Estonian prefix, which are actually generated using the Internet and hide the number of another country. “Scammers have built their plans to scare people. They claim that to resolve a problem with a bank account you need to act immediately otherwise you will lose the money in the account. The police and banks do not make such calls and you should not share your Mobile ID, identity card or Smart ID PIN codes with representatives of institutions or with your loved ones,” he underlined.
Compared to bank fraud, there were fewer investment frauds, but the total loss was greater. 305 people fell victim to this scheme and lost five million euros. “Scammers have created a huge number of investment and trading platforms on the Internet, where large profits are promised in a short time. But in reality it is a visual deception and people lose their invested money. Scammers are also active in several apps communication and offer people a consultant with the help of which they could quickly earn large sums of money. Unfortunately, there were also reimbursement programs in which the victim was told that he would need to make an additional payment to recover the lost money. Advice everyone to start investing from their own bank and familiarize themselves with the risks,” Tambre said.
2024-01-20 12:05:00
criminals-robbed-estonians-of-at-least-8-3-million-euros