Back in April, as governments around the world scrambled to secure protective equipment for their hospitals, Interpol exposed a scam to sell to Germany 15 million Euros-worth of non-existent face masks. The con involved compromised emails and fake websites of businesses in Spain, Ireland and The Netherlands. The fraud was discovered and thanks to some nifty footwork and a high level of coordination, the money recovered and the fraudsters, Interpol’s pun, not mine, unmasked.
‘Those arrested in this case had no connections to the medical equipment industry,’ Interpol’s Secretary General explained. ‘They were simply experienced fraudsters who saw an opportunity with the outbreak of Covid-19.’ Circumstances change, sometimes scarily quickly, as we’ve seen this year. But fraud, and fraudsters, not so much. Ponzi schemes. 419s. Boiler rooms.
Tax carousels. Many of these have been around for a very long time indeed. The people who commit them are rarely original, but they are infinitely and, as the Face Mask fraud illustrates, rapidly adaptable.
Swindlers are plausible, usually charming, often amiable and certainly clever. They can seem empathetic and compassionate but are anything but. They will be as varied as humanity itself but all will share three characteristics: Opportunity, motivation and rationalisation.
I’m entitled to this. I deserve it. I’m owed. And I don’t give a damn about the harm I do. When governments are pumping billions into the economy, when any commodity is suddenly in desperately short supply, an exponential growth in fraud is inevitable. Sad certainly, but hardly surprising. However, when predicting precisely what form such fraud will take, romance, or love scams don’t immediately leap to mind. Again, these are hardly original: A new friend, a kindred spirit from somewhere far away is always welcome. Like having a pen pal when you were a kid.
And when that new chum, who really seems to get you, just needs a little bit of money to help them out due to an unfortunate accident? An amount so small you wouldn’t even notice it…And then a bit more…
And when, to show their gratitude, your pal shares with you an amazing investment opportunity…
It’s easy, reading this to think you’d never fall for that.
But when you’re feeling vulnerable and looking for some glimmer of hope in an increasingly bleak world, you drop your guard and you judge things by different standards. And therein lies the likely explanation for the current explosion in this type of scam: Tens of millions of people suddenly in lockdown, furloughed, self-isolating and home-working. Lonely. Anxious. Scared for their financial future. Literally frightened for their lives. The individual too smart to be conned has yet to be born.
Neil McCallum Twitter: @dawoodmccallum, *Writes as Dawood Ali McCallum
Author of five novels, Mrs A’s Indian Gentlemen* being the latest