JERSEY’s police chief has teamed up with banks to crack down on an “uptick” in sophisticated “spoofing” scams which are conning Islanders out of thousands.
In a Scrutiny panel hearing, deputy chief officer of the States police Scott Hall – representing police chief Robin Smith – said that the Island’s Fraud Prevention Forum was working hard to respond to an increase in the number and types of scams being reported.
Mr Hall revealed that Mr Smith had contacted banks to develop ways to make it “more difficult” for “spoofing” scammers to impersonate highstreet banks such as HSBC.
“Spoofing” involves fraudsters making their emails and calls look and sound like they are from a legitimate bank or financial institution.
Mr Hall was responding to a question from Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel chair Deputy Catherine Curtis about what work was being done to prevent these crimes.
The deputy chief officer said that investigators were pursuing leads to “capture” fraudsters – but that these scams could emanate from anywhere in the world.
Last week, the States police launched an appeal to trace a “serial fraudster” accused of targeting Islanders and businesses over a three-year period.
In March, the JEP reported that the Joint Financial Crimes Unit were investigating a “spoofing” scam in which 68 victims across the Channel Islands had lost a total of more than £2 million.
In 2023, £624,000 was lost to these scams.
Just this week, another scammer described as having a “London accent” conned an Islander out of £12,800 by claiming to be from HSBC, prompting the force to issue a fresh warning on social media.
Mr Hall said that scammers were also targeting those warning posts by commenting with suspicious links – which Islanders are advised not to click.
He said: “Somewhat perversely, some of the work that we’ve tried to do around putting messages out in the community to warn people on social media have seen scammers try and upload links into the comment sections inviting people to click on them and potentially become victims of scams.
“We have definitely seen an uptick in the number of scams being reported and different methods being adopted by scammers.”
Mr Hall continued: “The chief officer is personally leading some work around co-operating with the financial houses to figure out how we can best target individuals and help them avoid becoming victims of scams, especially the vulnerable.
“We would like to work with banks to figure out how we can eradicate people being duped into thinking they are having a bone fide conversation with members of a bank of financial house or institution.
“The scams are becoming more and more sophisticated, which is why the chief is working with financial houses on what their policies look like, to make it much more difficult for a scammers try to represent them in dishonest ways.
“That work is in its early stage [and] the Fraud Prevention Forum is doing a lot of work in publicising different types of [strategies] and what Islanders can do to protect themselves.”
He added that while it was difficult to investigate scams, because they can “emanate from anywhere across the globe”, officers were pursuing investigations where there was the evidence and information to present leads.
