Losses from investment scams made up the largest proportion of the total money lost due to fraud in the fourth quarter of last year, with many victims being women older than 50, Ministry of the Interior data showed.
Taiwanese lost NT$37.19 billion (US$1.23 billion) to fraud in the final quarter of last year, with 1,677 people losing more than NT$5 million to fraud, or 3.1 percent of the 54,113 reported incidents, National Police Agency (NPA) Deputy Director-General Chen Yong-li (陳永利) told a news conference on Friday. That amounted to NT$21.16 billion in losses, or 56.9 percent of the total losses, he said.
Most of the incidents involving large losses were investment scams, with most of the 1,242 victims of investment fraud being women, at 821 people, almost twice the number of male victims at 421 people, he said, adding that 516 of those cases involved women older than 50.
Photo courtesy of the police via CNA
About 32 percent of the victims, 394 people, were retired, homemakers or did not have a job, Chen said.
The ministry report divided the fraud incidents into three categories: investment scams, romance cons and “authority” impersonation schemes.
In investment scams, criminals often find victims by buying advertisements on Facebook or other social media platforms to eventually get them to sign up for an “investing group” on the messaging app Line, the report said.
Messages in the group seek to give a target the impression they are profiting from investment tips, and the victims are deceived into wiring fraudsters money to buy into the schemes, it said.
In romance cons, criminals use fake profiles to befriend people on dating sites or social media to attempt to defraud them, it said.
Fraudsters also attempt to scam people by impersonating staff from banks, police or local government officials, contacting the victims by telephone or text message, it said.
In the scams, the impersonator claims someone is using the victim’s identity to open bank accounts, or that there had been unusual activity on the accounts, which is then followed by calls from people claiming to be police officers or judicial officials saying they are investigating money laundering or other fraud.
They then attempt to get the victim to give them their bank account details or other personal information, the report said.
It takes victims of investment scams about two months to realize they have been defrauded, while in romance cons, it could take up to 270 days before a victim knows they have been scammed, NPA Anti-Fraud Center researcher Wang Chung-sheng (王琮聖) said.
In the cases of the third category, it could be up to two years, Wang said.
In investment fraud, victims, some of whom put up their homes or other property as collateral, usually discover the con faster, as they are drained of money quicker, he said.
In some romance scams, fraudsters claim to be a physician from the US or a member of the military, he said.
In the military con, the person would sometimes tell the victim they had been injured in the line of duty to gain sympathy and convince the victim to transfer their money or valuables as part of a long-term scheme, he added.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
RSS