There has been a sub­stan­tial in­crease in Ro­mance Scam/Fraud since the on­set of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, with some 100 vic­tims lodg­ing re­ports with claims that they have been scammed a to­tal of TT$2.3 mil­lion.

This dis­clo­sure was made via an ad­vi­so­ry to the pub­lic to be aware of such scams by the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of Trinidad and To­ba­go (“the FI­UTT”).

The FI­UTT re­vealed it has record­ed Sus­pi­cious Trans­ac­tion/Ac­tiv­i­ty Re­port (STR/SAR) sub­mis­sions with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 sus­pect­ed Ro­mance Scam/Fraud vic­tims. Ac­cord­ing to the FI­UTT, over the past 18 months, these STRs/SARs rep­re­sent a loss of over TT$2.3 mil­lion to "vul­ner­a­ble" cit­i­zens in this coun­try.

As such, the FI­UTT is urg­ing the pub­lic to be on high alert for the fol­low­ing in­di­ca­tors of Ro­mance Scam/Fraud from per­sons who:

●   promise re­la­tion­ships;

●   promise gifts;

●   promise to vis­it T&T to en­gage or get mar­ried;

●   in­struct you to PAY funds in­to a third par­ty’s per­son­al sav­ings ac­count (in T&T) for for­eign ship­ping pay­ments;

●   claim to be send­ing cash with a gift, say­ing Cus­toms has held it un­til a fee is paid;

●   per­sons who claim you have to pay fees for an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing clear­ance;

●   per­sons who claim that your per­son­al gift and cash is be­ing shipped through Diplo­mat­ic chan­nels.

The FI­UTT rec­om­mends that if some­one sus­pects an oc­cur­rence of a Ro­mance Scam/Fraud, they should:

●   Stop com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the per­son im­me­di­ate­ly!

●   Nev­er trans­fer mon­ey from your bank ac­count or wire mon­ey to that ‘love in­ter­est’! You will nev­er get it back!

●   Con­tact your bank im­me­di­ate­ly if you be­lieve you sent or de­posit­ed mon­ey to a scam­mer!

●   Talk to some­one you trust. If your friends or fam­i­ly say they are trou­bled about your new ‘love in­ter­est’, then take heed…pay at­ten­tion!

●   Do your own in­ter­net search­es on the per­son/whom they claim to be! You can al­so browse the com­ments on blogs about ro­mance scams to hear oth­er sto­ries.

●   Do a re­verse im­age search of the per­son's pro­file pic­ture. That way, you will see if it's linked to an­oth­er per­son name or de­tails that don't match!

"Those are signs of a scam," the FI­UTT said.

The FI­UTT fur­ther ad­vis­es that in the un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stance that they or a fam­i­ly mem­ber does be­come a vic­tim of a Ro­mance Scam/Fraud, cit­i­zens should do the fol­low­ing:

●   Call the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s Fraud Squad at 1 (868) 625-2310, 1 (868) 623 2644, and 1 (868) 652-8594; or email them at fraud@ttps.gov.tt.

●   Send a dis­clo­sure to the FI­UTT at fi­utt@gov.tt.  Pro­vide all the de­tails of your com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the sus­pect­ed fraud­ster.

In ad­di­tion, mem­bers of the pub­lic can ac­cess the Ro­mance Scam Ad­vi­so­ry on the FI­UTT’s web­site, at www.fiu.gov.tt and https://www.fiu.gov.tt/wp-con­tent/up­loads/ADV_005_2021_Ro­mance_Scam_Fly­er.pdf