As an update to our story aired on Monday, tonight we can tell you that several Belizeans have been affected by online scammers. The process is called phishing with a PH. It’s an online move by criminals where they bait people to either give up personal banking information or where they make job or loan offers to scam other persons. It is a global trend, and now that it has hit many Belizean consumers, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) says they are investigating the reports. Deputy Director of the unit, Lin Ysaguirre-McGann spoke to our newsroom on the current situation.
Leni Ysaguirre-McGann, FIU Deputy-Director: “The FIU has become aware of phishing, phishing attacks. They have been targeted at least the ones that we’ve noted have been caught having serious consequences for the victims. They have been targeted towards customers of financial institutions, domestic financial institutions. They purport to be reputable businesses. Well known organisations and they try to contact you and convey a message that would hopefully strike at the victim so for example they might indicate that you need to update certain information with your account, that there has been some sort of security risk that you need to, therefore, take care of and in so doing they typically provide a link that you would click on and then they would ask you to confirm or provide certain information. The information is sensitive information and information that you ought not to provide over the…
