Fraud crime nearly doubled in the first quarter of the year, due a surge in phone-based scams, CSO figures show.
Over 17,000 incidents of fraud have been recorded in the first three months of 2022, up 88% on same period in the previous year, when just 9,200 cases were recorded.
According to the statistics office, the increase is largely driven by unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phones. The figures were revealed just days after gardaí uncovered a ‘smishing factory’ during an operation in the Tallaght area of Dublin.
In a smishing scam an account holder receives a text, purportedly from their bank. Attached to the message is a link which brings the victim to a cloned website.
The person is then asked to input their PIN which allows the fraudsters to take control of their account and transfer money to a mule account.
Up to €40,000 in cash was seized along with ten mobile devices during the raid which were found to have sent around 10,000 smishing mes- sages in one day. A laptop also seized revealed that it controlled a number of fake websites linked to the text message scam.
In March, gardaí reported a 370% surge in fraud related crimes within the space of just 12 months.
The latest statistics reveal more people are falling victim to scammers as their methods of deception become more sophisticated every year.
Gardaí say members of the public should be wary of unsolicited phone calls (vishing), emails (phishing) and texts (smishing) and not to click on any links sent their way.
The most prevalent frauds purport to be from a bank or other financial institution.
Other data, such as an address, date of birth and PPS numbers can be requested as part of scams to steal personal or financial information.
Meanwhile, most other crimes have also increased in the same three month period, particularly kidnapping and related offences – up 38% Offences against the Government, justice procedures and organisation of crime have also increased by 24%.
Assault and sexual offences grew by 19% and 13% respectively, while homicides and controlled drug crimes were down by 38% and 26%.
The CSO also reported that just 85 offences were recorded in the Garda Pulse database for breaches of COVID-19 restrictions from January to March, 2022.
Jim Dalton, CSO statistician, said: ‘Recorded Crime statistics for the year ending in March 2022 showed that the number of fraud incidents recorded on An Garda Síochána’s PULSE database nearly doubled over the period. The increase was largely driven by unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone.’
The CSO also noted that the thousands of 999 calls cancelled over the past number of years may have impacted its Garda PULSE statistics.
Mr Dalton added: ‘An internal AGS investigation into the inappropriate cancellation of calls on its CAD [Computer Aided Dispatch] system is continuing.
‘The premature or improper cancellation of incidents on the CAD system may mean that records relating to crimes, which were reported to [gardaí], were not created on the PULSE system and are therefore not counted in Recorded Crime statistics.’
He said An Garda Síochána had carried out an interim investigation which focused only on the most serious high risk crimes.
Mr Dalton added: ‘These mainly related to domestic violence, sexual assault, health and missing persons, which covered the cancellation of about 6,000 incidents dating back to 2019.’
He explained an incident can be validly cancelled, for example, if multiple calls come in for the same incident.
He said that of the incidents which should not have been cancelled, 143 would have resulted in a criminal incident being recorded on Pulse.
The statistician added: ‘In volume terms, this has a very small effect on published crime statistics for the 21- month period in question.
‘The CSO awaits the final outcome of AGS investigations into the issue before it can fully determine the impact on recorded crime statistics.’
