The Fraud Squad Unit of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says there has been a sharp rise in fraud-re­lat­ed of­fences tar­get­ing cit­i­zens’ fi­nan­cial ac­counts. As such, it has ad­vised mem­bers of the pub­lic to im­me­di­ate­ly delete and avoid click­ing on links re­ceived via email or text mes­sages.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the Fraud Squad urged cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion and steer clear of click­ing on links re­ceived via emails or SMS mes­sages. The warn­ing came from the Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Fraud Squad Michael Jack­man, who said there has been a “sharp rise in fraud-re­lat­ed of­fences tar­get­ing in­di­vid­u­als’ fi­nan­cial ac­counts.”

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, Snr Supt Jack­man said these crimes are com­mon­ly car­ried out by fraud­sters who send emails or SMS mes­sages claim­ing there is an ur­gent is­sue with the re­cip­i­ent’s bank ac­count. Vic­tims are then di­rect­ed to click a link to re­solve the mat­ter.

The se­nior of­fi­cer said that once the link is ac­cessed, the per­pe­tra­tors gain unau­tho­rised ac­cess to per­son­al fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion, re­sult­ing in the theft or il­le­gal trans­fer of funds.

The Fraud Squad em­pha­sised the mes­sage: “Don’t Click the Link.” It called on mem­bers of the pub­lic to ig­nore and delete such mes­sages. In­stead, it ad­vised cit­i­zens to con­tact their bank or fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion di­rect­ly if they re­ceive any com­mu­ni­ca­tion about their ac­count.

The Fraud Squad said: “Your vig­i­lance and co-op­er­a­tion are crit­i­cal in the on­go­ing fight against fi­nan­cial crime.”