Irish Fraudsters Shift Focus from Crypto to Banking Customers

Amid a two-year bear market, fraudsters in Ireland prefer to target traditional financial customers rather than cryptocurrency investors.

The frequency of cryptocurrency scams is frequently proportional to the ecosystem’s hype and profits at any particular time.

It appears that the ongoing bear market in cryptocurrencies has helped eliminate at least a portion of bad actors, such as scammers and businesses, while retaining the majority of serious investors who value due diligence.

As a consequence of the difficulty in targeting crypto investors, con artists in Ireland have shifted their focus to banking customers.

“In the last few months, what has become more and more common is that victims have been contacted often by phone or by email by fraudsters who are saying they work for legitimate, high-profile British banks or trading houses.”

According to the Irish Independent, Irish citizens lost nearly 20 million euros to fraudsters posing as bank officials in 2023. A source revealed that fraudsters impersonating banks contact unwary consumers via telephone and email.

The Irish police are presently investigating multiple frauds of a similar nature and have successfully recovered €2 million ($2.1 million) from one of the perpetrators.

Since January 2023, Irish authorities have recovered approximately 4 million euros of the 20 million euros lost to banking schemes.

Despite accounting for 95% of scams at their peak, detectives verified to the Irish Independent that crypto scams are no longer the predominant form of investment fraud.

Instead of devising intricate crypto scams, fraudsters imitate banking websites and brochures to convince victims to part with their savings.

Detectives have identified well over twenty bank accounts in the United Kingdom that were utilized by the fraudsters but have yet to dismantle the operation.

The Bank of Ireland cautioned customers to be wary of bank employees who pressure them into making rash decisions—a common tactic employed by con artists to defraud investors.

While Ireland investigates the rise in banking customer fraud, a bank in Australia recently claimed that 40% of frauds “touch” cryptocurrency.

During a panel discussion at the Australian Blockchain Week on June 26, Sophie Gilder, managing director of blockchain and digital assets at Commonwealth Bank, stated:

“One in three of the dollars that are scammed from Australians touch crypto, one in three. So it’s the single largest lever that we have to reduce this impact on our customers.”

Nigel Dobson, banking services portfolio lead at ANZ, cited Australian Financial Crimes Exchange data indicating that the percentage could be as high as 40 percent.