'Staggering' sums of money stolen through investment fraud so far this year

An Garda Síochána is advising the public to pay particular close attention when considering any potential investments given the staggering amounts being stolen through investment fraud in Ireland.

So far this year more than €13.5 million has been stolen from victims of investment fraud in Ireland.

Over €28 million was stolen from victims of investment fraud in Ireland last year, while between January 2020 and this month over €75 million was reported stolen in Ireland through investment fraud.

Investment fraud is where criminals pose as investment managers to fool someone into investing money in schemes and projects that do not exist.

During a period of high cost of living, these sophisticated criminals are taking advantage by cloning webpages and targeting victims through online and social media adverts by promising ‘once in a lifetime opportunities’ to instantly invest with fast and large financial returns.

Detective Superintendent Michael Cryan of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau said, "Investment fraud is on the rise and the schemes are more sophisticated than ever before. Sadly, those who become victims are ordinary, decent people that are having huge amounts of their life savings stolen from them be it their inheritance or a retirement lump sum.

Between January 2020 and August this year, over 1,117 people have reported incidents of investment fraud to A Garda Síochána. 44% of the reported incidents made reference to ‘Bitcoin’ or ‘Crypto’.

Men are increasingly becoming the victim of the type of fraud and remain most at risk.

The majority of victims in the past four years have been male (64%) and those aged over 40 make up over half of all victims.

Reported incidents in the first seven months of this year include:

1. Earlier this year a victim reported that she saw a post on social media advertising investment opportunities. The woman made contact with the company, whom she believed was legitimate, and during the course of their engagement she agreed to transfer €28,600 from her Revolut account to another. This crime is currently being investigated by An Garda Síochána.

2. A man came forward to An Garda Síochána to report that he was the victim of an investment fraud after he came across a trading broker online.

He initially invested €250 and after several more investments he noticed his equity rising rapidly. He was able to withdraw €5,000 and therefore believed that the company was legitimate.

He continued to invest considerable size sums of money and within weeks had invested €250,000. The online trading broker disappeared and the victim has suffered a huge financial loss. Gardaí are investigating.

3. After seeing an advert on a social media platform for an investment scheme, this victim reported that he had filled in his personal details and was contacted by purporting to be involved in the investment opportunity. After some discussion, the victim believed would be investing in trading through a mobile app and was enticed to send on €45,000.

He was recently assured that he held over €727,000 return which was available in USD coin via an Ethereum wallet but when he checked he could not access it in an Atomic wallet. When he questioned this with his contact, the victim was told would need to pay €36,000 in DIRT tax to access to funds. It was then that he realised he may have invested in a fraudulent scheme and reported it to An Garda Síochána.

"The fraudsters involved in fraudulent investment schemes will sound convincing and claim to have insider knowledge but they are career criminals that are following a well-rehearsed script," Detective Superintendent Cryan continued.

"It is crucially important that we are all mindful of who were are transferring money too and to be careful when sending via an international money transfer app to make sure it can be tracked."

"Investment fraud can easily happen and no one is to be judged – we really encourage anyone who has been a victim in the past or who has more recently become a victim of investment fraud to please come forward and speak with us in any Garda Station.

How to Avoid Investment Fraud
Avoid investment fraud by not investing money until you get reliable financial and legal advice; checking the regulatory status of the company via the Central Bank of Ireland webpage; not responding to pop-up/social media ads or messages with claims about investment returns and ignoring unsolicited approaches or cold calls about investments.

The public should beware of celebrity-endorsed investments – they may not even know that their name is being used; be careful of cryptocurrency, bank bonds and hedge fund investment opportunities that present unusually high % returns; be wary of fake wallets for storing your cryptocurrency - these can be scams for malware to infect or control your computer

Do not click on links for webpages that you don’t know and always check that the site is HTTPS secured and never allow anyone remote access to your computer or download Apps that can give others control of your computer – ‘AnyDesk’ is one example

Take your time to consider before sending or transferring any money – get a second opinion from a friend, family member, colleague if not a financial advisor, and never disclose personal data or bank account passwords or codes.