The Director of the Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit Razim Buksh says in the last 24 months they have seen an increase in the number of Fijians falling victim to several types of digital platform scams, and romance scams top the list of scams.
Buksh highlighted this during a panel discussion at the World Consumer Rights Day Celebration.
Buksh says what they have seen is that Fijians are wanting to connect with total strangers and in doing that they begin to romance with strangers.
He says when these people gain trust and build a relationship, they end up sending money to cyber criminals.
Buksh says in the last 24 months they have received 80 cases where Fijians have fallen victim to romance scams.
He says they have seen illegal pyramid selling scheme or multi-level marketing scams that come in several forms and shapes.
Buksh adds that the first one was where people were enquiring whether this is legal or not and at the time the scheme was so massive that several Fijians at the bottom of the pyramid scheme were losing money.
He says the Minister for Trade then intervened and highlighted in Parliament where they collaborated with the Consumer Council and the FCCC, and were able to do outreach and combat this illegal pyramid selling scheme.
Buksh says it is surprising that Fijians have been so innovative in running the illegal pyramid selling scheme.
The Director of the FIU has also stressed that when online scams happen, the money is gone because the cyber criminals operated as syndicates.
Buksh says the money may be collected in Nigeria or in any other country and it may be a syndicate collecting and not the actual criminal.
He says they also have 132 reports of advanced fee fraud.
Buksh says this is when people get connected to a cyber criminal online and they ask for an upfront fee.
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