Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1540302
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 12 OCTOBER 2025 NEWS The Gaza surgeon, a teddy bear and AFTER meeting a man on Facebook who told her he was a surgeon in Gaza, 70-year-old Maria* thought she was having a mature conversation about life's troubles. The exchange soon shifted to email and quickly to Messenger, where the discussion became more intimate. Win- ning Maria's confidence, the man asked for financial support to exit Gaza. Given his story of resilience and suf- fering, Maria did not think twice. Over a six-month period, she made 39 bank transfers to accounts in Italy and Bel- gium. She withdrew cash from ATMs to send it over as instructed to addresses outside of Malta. On one occasion, she was told by the man to stuff €8,000 in cash inside a ted- dy bear and post the parcel to Germany. It was stopped by German customs offi- cials, who discovered the cash. Maria ended up transferring in various forms a whopping €568,000 to the 'Gaza surgeon' in a typical case of romance fraud. But the more than half a million-euro Maria was deceived into handing over is just a fraction of the €5.3 million lost to fraud this year, reported by clients of Bank of Valletta alone. The figure, correct up to end of Sep- tember, is almost double the total amount of money lost to fraud by BOV clients in 2024. A fraction of reality Ryan Caruana, BOV chief anti-finan- cial crime officer and money launder- ing reporting officer, says that reported fraud is probably just a fraction of real- ity. "Apart from the €5.3 million lost to fraud, BOV managed to stop an addi- tional €2.2 million from being lost to fraudsters, but a lot of these crimes re- main unreported because victims are either ashamed or fearful of what their partners or relatives would say," Caru- ana says. He sits down across a boardroom table at BOV's head office in Santa Venera, for a briefing with journalists. Next to Caruana is Mark Falzon, head of the bank's Anti-Financial Crime In- vestigations, and Inspector Clive Brim- mer who heads the police's Online Fraud Financial Crime Investigations Depart- ment. The briefing is part of BOV's con- tinuous efforts to raise awareness about online investment scams, romance fraud, compromised business emails and other fraudulent activity that preys on human vulnerability. "Fraudsters play on human psychol- ogy and there is no particular profile for victims; anyone is vulnerable to fraud—we have seen victims of all ag- es, with differing educational and social backgrounds," Caruana says. He adds: "Fraudsters exploit human emotions, such as loneliness, a yearning to be loved, or a moment of vulnerability or a state of anxiety, to coax victims into unwittingly opening their wallets." Caruana says that €200 million a day are lost in online fraud alone across the EU and UK. The Nasdaq Global Finan- cial Crime Report puts the overall year- ly defrauded amount at an eyewatering €85 billion. Fraud victims in denial Inspector Brimmer says that defraud- ed amounts in cases filed with the police force between January and June totalled €8.3 million (150 cases). "We've seen it all," Brimmer says, em- phasising that some victims of fraud re- main in denial. In some cases, he adds, they even fall victim for a second time. "We investigated a case where the vic- tim had cut off communication with the fraudster on police instructions, only to be contacted three months later by the same person using a false email and this time mimicking an Interpol officer will- ing to help in the recovery of lost funds against a payment," Brimmer says. The victim complied with the fake request despite having reported their case to the Maltese police. The picture is bleak as more of our lives go online, giving fraudsters the pretext to exploit vulnerabilities, situa- tions and lifestyles. Fraudsters also ex- ploit seasonality—fake SMSs purport- ing to be from Maltapost requesting fees for parcels are normally popular around Christmastime when it is very likely recipients are anxiously waiting for a parcel to arrive. They also exploit current affairs—prepare to start seeing deep fake videos of Finance Minister Clyde Caruana in the coming weeks as the budget looms, in which he encour- ages people to invest money in a bogus scheme that promises lucrative returns. 'A war we cannot win' Brimmer says online fraud investi- gations are complex because they deal with cross-border crime, often perpe- trated by organised criminal groups. Money is siphoned off into foreign bank accounts or crypto wallets, moving fast from one jurisdiction to another and not all jurisdictions are cooperative. "This is a war we cannot win but by raising awareness, people can take sim- ple steps to mitigate the risks and avoid falling victim by not sending money to people whom they have never met; by ignoring messages purporting to be from banks with links to bogus websites that ask for personal details and request Maria was duped into sending money inside a teddy bear to a man who posed as a surgeon from Gaza, making her one of the many victims of online fraud Mark Falzon Ryan Caruana KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Maria ended up transferring in various forms a whopping €568,000 to the 'Gaza surgeon' in a typical case of romance fraud.