Police in Northern Ireland have warned the public to be on their guard against financial crime, after a woman in her 70s was defrauded out of her life savings of over \u00a3250,000.<\/p>\n
The PSNI said on 21 May it received a report that a woman in Newry, Co Down, had invested in what she believed was a cryptocurrency scheme which she had seen advertised online.<\/p>\n
They said the woman initially sent a relatively small amount.<\/p>\n
However, she then “invested” larger amounts on a number of occasions after the criminals convinced her she needed to send more in order to get her initial investment back.<\/p>\n
She then unknowingly downloaded malware at the instruction of the fraudsters, which they were then able to use to gain control of her electronic devices.<\/p>\n
PSNI detectives believe the fraudsters were then able to transfer more money from her account.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Joanne Gibson, Chair of the Scamwise Partnership, reminded the public to take a moment to stop and check any financial activity.<\/p>\n
“The Police Service of Northern Ireland will use every available resource to protect individuals and communities from the harm caused by fraud and exploitation,” she said.<\/p>\n
She added: “But I would also ask family members to take the time to have a conversation with their family members about fraud in order to try and safeguard them against criminals.<\/p>\n
“We know that this type of crime can have a far-reaching impact, but we can all work together to protect and prevent this from happening to those we care about.”<\/p>\n
Superintendent Gibson said that fraudsters can be “extremely convincing” and use a variety of scenarios to make people believe them to be genuine. “They are master manipulators,” she said.<\/p>\n
“If you are concerned by the intent of a person involved with someone you care about, you can report to police on the non-emergency number 101. We will listen and we will act. Any abuse of that trust will be treated with the utmost seriousness,” she added.<\/p>\n
The PSNI urged victims of fraud to report it to police on the PSNI’s website or by calling 101.<\/p>\n
It urged victims to also report fraud to their bank immediately.<\/p>\n
Reports can also be made on Action Fraud’s website or by calling 0300 123 2040.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police in Northern Ireland have warned the public to be on their guard against financial crime, after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-477842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}