Africa-Press – Seychelles. The Seychelles Bankers Association has warned about a new scam targeting local women, who are being used by criminals overseas to open local bank accounts used for criminal activities.
Speaking to Seychelles NATION, the chairperson of the Seychelles Bankers Association (SBA), Phillippe Moustache, said the new ploy is called a ‘mule accounts scam’.
He explained that contrary to previous scams where criminals would dupe a person by getting them to transfer money using western union, money gram or through bureau de change, this scam involves local bank accounts.
“What they do is befriend a local woman, develop a relationship, where after a while they will ask her to open a local account for them. Once an ATM card is issued, these women would send the card and the PIN to that person overseas, and from there they will use the account for their criminal activities,” he said.
“These accounts are being used to credit money to scam other people. The money is deposited into accounts in Seychelles, and being withdrawn using ATM from other countries,” he added.
According to Mr Moustache, the association initially discovered four cases last year and following a thorough review, the institutions identified 64 such cases where people were depositing cash into such accounts.
“The way this is being done makes it very difficult for the police and other anti-criminal agencies to identify the criminals, or trace the money,” he said.
Mr Moustache added that some of these local women are also enticing other women to join this scam and has warned that this is a criminal activity and those responsible will be taken to task.
“The association has met with the local authorities including the police and the Office of the Attorney General and we have agreed that those involved in the scam, or found to be assisting in such scams will be prosecuted,” he warned.
He said that other than local women, the scam involves expatriates and so far the accounts have been linked to Ghana and Dubai.
According to the SBA, around 20 million rupees were lost through various monetary scams during the past ten years.
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