[Source: Consumer Council of Fiji / Facebook]

With National Scam Awareness Week underway to empower communities to fight against fraudulent activities, the Police Force today revealed that retired women are becoming targets of romance scams.

According to Acting Director Economic Crime Reshmi Dass, a woman reportedly lost around $500,000 due to a fraudulent romance scheme.

She says nine cases have already been reported to police.

Acting Director Economic Crime Reshmi Dass

“We have been receiving complaints and the victims are the retired ladies who share nude pictures to the person they communicating with so to get the money out of victims or these ladies, the old ladies, they try to tell them that if she is not going to give the money to the perpetrator he is going to explore her on social media to defame her character”

Dass says retired women are being targeted as they are more vulnerable.

“We have cases with us and it is before the court, it is a very young guy who was doing all this, he is pretending to be in overseas and he was using WhatsApp number and he was trying to get in touch with the ladies who are retired, maybe the age of 60 or 70 and they get into sweet talks the lady I am mentioning she gave $500,000 to this perpetrator”

Dass highlighted this during the National Scams Awareness Week, organized by the Consumer Council to raise awareness about scams in Fiji and empower communities to combat fraudulent activities.