Huge jump in instances of fraudsters taking control of bank accounts

New garda figures show a 560pc jump in the number of bank accounts being taken over by fraudsters since the pandemic. Often these bank accounts are cleaned out by the criminals.

As more personal banking is done electronically, there has been an explosion in online scams.

And phishing frauds are up 417pc in the past three years, according to figures provided to Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty by the Department of Justice.

Phishing is a cyber crime where people are contacted by email, phone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution.

The fraudsters try to lure them into providing sensitive data such as banking and credit card details, and passwords.

Investment frauds have jumped hugely, with romance fraud and shopping/online auction scams also rocketing since 2019.

The new information comes as the Central Bank warned of another six companies trying to offer loans and investments here despite not being authorised to do so.

Mr Doherty claimed a lack of Government strategy on fraud was leaving consumers vulnerable to these scams.

“Figures released to me by the Department of Justice show an alarming increase in the incidence of scams and fraud since 2019,” he said.

“Since the pandemic, incidents of investment fraud have risen by 258pc. Incidents of phishing, vishing and smishing fraud have spiralled by a staggering 417pc.”

He said people were increasingly worried about falling victim to such criminal actions. “Despite this growing threat, the Justice Minister is yet to publish a national strategy on economic crime and fraud two years after it was promised.”

Mr Doherty claimed the Department of Justice was holding up efforts to set up a shared fraud database for banks and state agencies that is crucial to tackling and rooting out this growing crime.

The Department of Justice figures, which were provided by An Garda Síochána, show the category of financial fraud with the largest rise in reported incidents since 2019 is where fraudsters take over a person’s bank account.

There were 362 cases reported to the gardaí in 2019, but by last year it had jumped to 2,389 cases – a rise of 560pc.

A total 179 investment frauds were reported last year, up by 258pc since 2019, according to the Dáil reply.

It is thought that the actual number of financial scams is far higher as people often do not report these crimes to gardaí because they feel embarrassed about it.

Card-not-present frauds more than doubled in the three-year period to 1,548 last year. Deception and phishing and smishing frauds are also high, the figures show.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee told Mr Doherty the Government was committed to ensuring An Garda Síochána had the resources it needed. The 2023 Budget for An Garda Síochána is more than €2bn.

“I am informed that there has been a 21pc increase in resourcing provided to Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) since the end of 2020, up from 95 to a total of 115 at the end of April 2023.

“I am also informed that GNECB (Garda National Economic Crime Bureau) is also providing training and support to all garda divisions in how to investigate fraud,” Ms McEntee said in the Dáil reply.

The data was provided to Mr Doherty from 2019 onwards, since most of these fraud or economic crime incidents were introduced in the Garda Pulse IT system during late 2018.

Information in relation to the number of convictions for fraud was not readily available.

Fraudsters stole nearly €45m through frauds and scams in the second half of 2021, up 50pc on 2020, according to a recent FraudSmart report.