The T&T Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC) is once again sound­ing an alarm, is­su­ing its fourth of­fi­cial alert this year re­gard­ing a per­sis­tent and evolv­ing surge in in­vest­ment scams tar­get­ing the pub­lic.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the pub­lic’s at­ten­tion to past warn­ings, the TTSEC, in a re­lease, con­tin­ues to em­pha­sise that fraud­sters are con­tin­u­al­ly de­vel­op­ing more so­phis­ti­cat­ed tac­tics, in­clud­ing the de­ploy­ment of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) to en­hance their de­cep­tion.

The com­mis­sion strong­ly urges cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion and re­main vig­i­lant to pro­tect their fi­nances.

“We con­tin­ue to see scams be­com­ing more so­phis­ti­cat­ed. We en­cour­age every­one to re­main care­ful, es­pe­cial­ly as fraud­sters in­tro­duce new tac­tics to gain peo­ple’s trust,” the TTSEC said.

The TTSEC has high­light­ed sev­er­al key red flags and evolv­ing strate­gies be­ing used by scam­mers:

• Fake pro­files: Scam­mers use so­cial me­dia ac­counts with stolen or gener­ic pho­tos, min­i­mal in­for­ma­tion, and vague con­tent to gain your trust;

• Un­re­al­is­tic re­turns: Be wary of promis­es such as: “Earn $30,150 on a $2,000 in­vest­ment in two hours.” These are de­signed to lure you in with im­pos­si­ble re­turns;

• Con­tact via What­sApp/Telegram: Af­ter re­spond­ing to an ad or post, scam­mers shift the con­ver­sa­tion to pri­vate mes­sag­ing apps, where im­per­son­ators pos­ing as “in­vest­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives” give false as­sur­ances;

• Ur­gent de­posit re­quests: Scam­mers send bank ac­count de­tails and pres­sure you to de­posit funds quick­ly to “se­cure your spot” or to ac­cess high­er re­turns;

• False fee-free claims: They may ini­tial­ly claim that there are no fees in­volved and that with­drawals are easy and fast;

• Fake in­vest­ment plat­forms: Af­ter de­posit­ing funds, you may be giv­en ac­cess to a fab­ri­cat­ed in­vest­ment plat­form, which shows ex­ag­ger­at­ed ac­count bal­ances to de­ceive you in­to think­ing you’ve made sig­nif­i­cant prof­its;

• Use of AI to im­per­son­ate: Scam­mers now use ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) to cre­ate con­vinc­ing doc­u­ments and fake pro­files of high-rank­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials or in­sti­tu­tions. These can in­clude lo­gos, email ad­dress­es, or even fake video mes­sages from sup­posed lead­ers. Al­ways ver­i­fy di­rect­ly with the named in­sti­tu­tion;

• With­draw­al fees and de­lays: Vic­tims are of­ten asked to pay ex­ces­sive fees—some­times over TT$1,000—be­fore “prof­its” can be re­leased. This is usu­al­ly fol­lowed by ad­di­tion­al de­mands for more pay­ments;

• Re­quests for per­son­al da­ta: Nev­er pro­vide sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion such as ID card im­ages, cred­it card de­tails, pass­words, or bank PINs to un­known in­di­vid­u­als;

• Use of mon­ey trans­fer ser­vices: Scam­mers may re­quest funds through third-par­ty mon­ey trans­fer ser­vices or ask you to trans­fer re­ceived funds to oth­er ac­counts, which could im­pli­cate mon­ey laun­der­ing;

• Dis­ap­pear­ing Act: Once doubts arise or you re­quest a re­fund, com­mu­ni­ca­tion may drop off grad­u­al­ly and then stop en­tire­ly.

The TTSEC stressed that the pub­lic has the pri­ma­ry role in pre­vent­ing these schemes from suc­ceed­ing, ad­vis­ing that peo­ple be wary of any un­so­licit­ed in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, es­pe­cial­ly those found on so­cial me­dia or mes­sag­ing ap­pli­ca­tions.