Promises of employment, exchange of currency and mobile payments through the Multicaixa Express application are among the most common types of scams carried out over the internet. Most of these crimes are carried out under fake profiles of public entities, with Facebook being the most used social network, Expansão found out from the Cyber Crimes department of the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC).
In addition to these scams carried out over the internet, there is added enticement through advertisements for car sales, prizes from successful public and private companies, the sale of bundled “balloons” at very low prices, houses, land and promises of love, in which fraudsters harass women with some financial power, who end up being victims of extortion.
In relation to scams carried out through job offers, “you are only leading the ranking because of the high unemployment rate in the country”, says the director of Telecommunications and Information Technologies at SIC, Francisco Pedro, who recognizes that this situation has opened up a new field of opportunity for fraudsters.
In other words, the SIC registers dozens of complaints of scams carried out over the internet every day. Per year, the institution receives more than 2 thousand cases/year, with the last three months of the year (October, November and December) being when the highest number of cases is recorded.
Profile cloning
“These scams are applied through fixing – a fraudulent link that fraudsters create to clone profiles of public entities, companies or well-known people and where they introduce attractive data that makes people, out of distraction, enter their personal data and then see their bank accounts were hacked”, explains Francisco Pedro.
According to the head of the Telecommunications and Information Technologies area at SIC, more than 1.000 million Kz are lost every year in cases of fraud, via the internet, specifically on social networks.
Neurity Vunda is one of the victims. In April this year, she became interested in a Toyota Lander Cruiser vehicle, which was for sale on Facebook for 30 million Kz. To Expansão, the woman said that as soon as she had the first contact with the fraudster, via the internet, showing interest, the man started putting pressure on him with the argument that he already had someone interested and that he should pay as soon as possible. And if it took another half day, he would lose the opportunity to purchase the vehicle.
“In my eagerness to get the vehicle, I transferred half the value (15 million Kz), so that we could later meet in person and close the deal. Half an hour later, the seller's phone was already disconnected, until today,” he said.
On the internet, cars vary between 500 thousand Kz and 35 thousand Kz. The prices are, in fact, very low, which makes anyone suspicious, despite there being real sales amidst the fraud.
Victims of love
But there are also other forms of fraud, which are carried out through promises of love. Márcia, a 35-year-old civil servant, met a young man on the internet in 2021 and maintained a relationship that lasted four months.
