In 2022, Cypriots lost unprecedented amounts of money to online scams, despite recommendations by the Police and other organizations not to respond to suspicious messages aimed at “fishing” unsuspecting citizens.
According to figures from the Cybercrime Branch, last year €23,231,163 was taken from Cypriots’ bank accounts in 425 cases. Amounts described as huge by electronic fraud.
As Police Officer B’ Andreas Anastasiades, Assistant Director of the Crime Combating Department and Head of Cybercrime Unit, pointed to Phileleftheros, internet fraud has been particularly high in the past year and the amount of money that has been taken from complainants in Cyprus has been huge.
Despite the 200 notices issued by the relevant Police office, Cypriots fell victim to international fraudsters who “pinched” tens of thousands of euros from their bank accounts before disappearing.
The most common electronic scams in which Cypriots or companies have fallen victim involve the phishing method, which is the main form of fraud, i.e. the sending of mass SMS messages to the public, pretending to represent banks, asking them to validate their details.
Another form of fraud is the method of illegal access to e-mails and changing bank addresses that supposedly require us to transfer our money, when in fact it is a scam (although their messages appear genuine).
Another risk is scams using cryptocurrency, where the perpetrators promise large profits immediately and convince “investors” to invest large sums for maximum return.
Another common scam is sending a message or e-mail that someone has a parcel through a courier company and in order to receive it they have to pay an extra amount because the shipping costs have increased.
