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Unemployed Bahrainis are being targeted by unscrupulous money-grabbing villains offering them career opportunities in the finance sector, the Interior Ministry has warned.
They are being duped into enticing investors to back their projects only to later find the enterprises they have been promoting are fictitious and the brainchild of a scamming operation which makes off with the money generated.
Victims have lost more than BD200,000, it has been revealed.
“Scammers are always looking for new strategies and methods to dupe people out of their money,” said department head for financial crimes within the General Directorate of Anti-corruption, Economic and Electronic Security, Major Mohammed Al Abdullah, in an interview with Bahrain TV.
Police investigations have uncovered a sudden rise in the number of fake investment companies, many claiming to be located in Bahrain and on the lookout for new hires.
“Anyone can fall for it, even if you are a cyber-expert, because scammers can make you believe what they are promoting is real,” explained Major Al Abdullah, who added that they cruelly recruit young people desperate to step on the first rung of the corporate ladder and build themselves a career.
“Lately, fraudsters have been conning unemployed Bahraini men and women by hunting them down online with scam job offers,” he revealed. “We need people to be aware of what is happening and urge them to stay up to date with these new heartless ploys.”
According to Major Al Abdullah, the criminals, located outside the country, will locate CVs on social media and business platforms such as LinkedIn and contact those looking for jobs under the ruse of hiring them to work for an investment company.
“They make them believe that they are working for companies in Bahrain,” said Major Al Abdullah. “They believe they will be getting a salary from this company, which is actually fake.
“The scammers then use these new hires to make calls to scam people about investing, resulting in the newly-employed individuals becoming aliases and culprits themselves, unknowingly though. It’s like they become the middle men and women.
“The callers will ask individuals to transfer the funds to their personal accounts and they will then invest it for them but what they end up doing is sending the transfer outside of Bahrain.”
The ‘employee’ has been used to commit a crime following the creation of a ‘false company’. The spoof firm promises to teach the recruits and they are primed on how to buy or sell on foreign currency exchanges and the stock markets, for example.
“The firm teaches how to trade and invest,” added Major Al Abdullah. “The individual always starts small but, of course, once he or she sees a profit, they are encouraged to invest more money. Some have invested up to BD200,000 and when the person goes to withdraw his or her funds, there is no money because it’s been placed somewhere outside of Bahrain.
“You can try and get your money back, however, it can be such a long process that most people simply give up. The fraudsters know and count on this.”
mai@gdnmedia.bh
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