GFSC campaign advises students on rising cyber scams

Gibraltar Financial Services Commission’s (GFSC) annual World Investor Week campaign has delivered sage advice to students on financial literacy and scam prevention.

The week-long global campaign promoted by the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) is aimed at protecting consumers, reducing financial crime, and promoting public awareness.

This is the ninth year the GFSC has participated in World Investor Week and, over the years, the Commission has seen first-hand the need for public awareness.

This year, the GFSC has teamed up with the Gibraltar Financial Intelligence Unit (GFIU) to deliver talks on financial literacy to school year 13, and to first year students at the University of Gibraltar, ensuring that they have an understanding about finance, scams and the risks of investing.

GFSC Director Sean Byrne and Business Delivery Advisor Yael Williamson told the Chronicle about the campaign, which includes key messages on their social media accounts.

Ms Williamson underscored the importance of financial literary, pointing out how Mastercard had reported global losses and damages from cyber attacks has reached $9 trillion, making cybercrime the third largest economy in the world.

“We've seen that as technology continues to advance and AI tools become more widely accessible and available, scams are becoming more and more sophisticated, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between a legitimate request and fraudulent schemes,” Ms Williamson said.

“Given the importance of this topic, we've decided to collaborate with the Gibraltar Financial Intelligence Unit for this year's campaign.”

“The GFIU has previously collaborated with the Department of Education to raise awareness among students about the risks and consequences of types of money laundering like money muling, so we thought it was very fitting to collaborate with them on this year's campaign, which will focus exclusively on fraud and scam prevention.”

The campaign has explored realistic scenarios many young people can find themselves in, with Ms Williamson and Mr Byrne highlighting scams which target young people as they enter university such as money muling.

Money muling is a form of money laundering when an individual transfers illicitly obtained funds on behalf of someone else.

Those who recruit money mules are known as money herders, and often target individuals by directly asking them to borrow their account to transfer money for them.

Mr Byrne explained that money herders will target university students who are in need of cash by promising them a cut.

He added that they don’t realise that they can be prosecuted as the funds can be traced back to them.

Ms Williamson added that the activity tends to happen on social media where young people are offered easy money.

The awareness campaign is also highlighting romance scams which can take place via dating apps and cryptocurrency scams.

Romance scams typically involve fraudsters gaining their victims trust and then pulling at heartstrings to get their victim to send over cash.

Mr Byrne and Ms Williamson added that, even with legitimate cryptocurrencies, youngsters should be aware of the volatility of the market and understand that, when investing, people should only invest what they can afford to lose.

They also highlighted parcel delivery scams whereby people will receive text messages with links to fraudulent sites by scammers purporting to be delivery companies.

Key advice is to check the source of the message or email and not to share personal details online.

Mr Byrne added that, when it comes to scams, “urgency is a key red flag” alongside any promises of guaranteed returns.

The GFSC also delivers talks as part of their consumer protection programme at the start of every academic year to students in Year 6 and Year 10, where they show children the basics of saving, borrowing and provide general information on financial services.

“I think that holistic view of educating children is so important and frankly, we love to do it,” Mr Byrne said.

“It's tempered at the right knowledge for the right age and then they can just develop through the years and then we capture them.”

“The last time we can capture them is at Year 13.”

Ms Williamson added that the University of Gibraltar students are very engaged in the campaign which comes at a time where many will be making important financial decisions for the first time in their lives.

The team at the GFSC was joined by GFIU Head of Operations Carl Ramagge for this week-long campaign.

For more information, visit the GFSC website: www.fsc.gi