Fraudster told garda he will be arrested in revenue scam

A GARDA sergeant was on the receiving end of a hoax call recently, during which he was told by a fraudster that he was to be arrested.

Speaking at the JPC Policing meeting on Friday, Sgt Eoin Beatty, from Ronanstown Garda Station, said he received a call last week, from someone purporting to be from revenue.

Sgt Beatty said the call originated from South East Asia. He used the personal anecdote as an example of the type of crime that has dramatically increased in Ireland this year – scam calls were up 440 per cent in the first six months of 2021.

Fraud deception cases are also up significantly this year in South Dublin County, particularly in the Rathfarnham policing district, which has seen a near 60 per cent increase from 2020.

Some 70 fraud/deception cases were recorded in Rathfarnham this year, according to the latest garda statistics.

Fraud/deception cases in Sgt Beatty’s Ronanstown district are up 14 per cent – with 32 such cases recorded this year.

Senior gardai acknowledge it is a nationwide issue, but they reiterated appeals for residents to be aware of criminals – often working remotely – who target people’s accounts, via a phone call, email or text.

Chief Superintendent DMR South Peter Duff said: “A lot of these have got to do with remote fraud, that is deception fraud on someone’s account. It is the accounts being compromised and funds taken from them to another location.”

Chief Supt Duff said financial institutions will never ask for people’s account number, pin numbers, “or anything like that in any form of automated messaging”.

“They don’t do that, again there is information on the garda website, put out by the garda national economic crime bureau,” he said.

According to garda.ie the most common types of fraud in Ireland today are payment card fraud and invoice redirection fraud.