‘If it’s too good to be true…’: another warning made over online fraud
LOCAL police have stressed the need to be aware of online scams after figures showed the number of fraud crimes in Shetland is on the rise.
Chief inspector Paul Daley said “it’s that old adage – if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”.
Five fraud crimes were reported in Shetland between April and June this year, which is an increase of two from the same period in 2020.
The figures were presented to a meeting of Shetland’s community safety and resilience board on Thursday.
Daley also repeated his warning against ‘sextortion’, which involves the threat of sharing sexual information, images or clips to extort money from people.
He said this tended to see males being “lured” in messages on social media and being recorded on webcams.
Daley said, however, that no-one in Shetland has reported being defrauded in this way.
Elsewhere in the report Daley said it has been largely positive three months for the police.
In those three months there were 43 charges relating to drugs offences, which is up from 20 in the same period in 2020/21.
Forty of the charges were for possession, and three were around supply.
Between April and June substances worth more than £50,000 were recovered with help from Dogs Against Drugs.
Occurrences of assault and threatening and abusive behaviour were down on the previous year.
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