Authorities have reported of increased scam activities in the Maldives in the past two weeks with over MVR 500,000 stolen from several people.
An official from Maldives Police Service said the authority has received reports of 65 distinct scam calls within the past two weeks with MVR 533,000 stolen from the victims.
Most scams were via hacking social media accounts, at a total of 15 cases. Scams in the name of buying and selling foreign currency, non-payment of money after taking products and not issuing products after taking money from clients were among the other scam cases.
Besides this, there were cases of obtaining money by impersonating a friend of the victim and sending fake transfer slips.
There have been cases of hacking using various links and scams where the OTP code was obtained as well. There were also one cases of fraudulent withdrawal of money on the pretext of representing a company, a family member or a promotion.
Local authorities have urged the public to be aware of unverified messages and phone calls.