One of the tasks entrusted to the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) is to combat unlawful activities in the area of financial investments. Since last July, it has been publishing a quarterly dashboard that provides statistics and an overview of the main trends regarding investment fraud. Today, it is publishing the dashboard for the fourth quarter of 2022, which will also include the figures for the whole year 2022.
This edition of the dashboard focuses on the following items:
- “Recovery room” fraud is increasing. The FSMA wishes to draw the attention of the public to this type of fraud, which targets people who have already been victims of fraud in the past.
- To illustrate the workings of “recovery room” fraud and investment fraud more generally, the FSMA has incorporated into the dashboard a diagram representing the “classic” way these scams work.
- The FSMA has published warnings against 267 fraudulent entities and 301 websites over the year 2022.
- A large majority of these warnings concerned fraudulent trading platforms (149 fraudulent entities) and fraudulent offers of credit (95).
- The majority of consumers who contacted the FSMA about fraud in 2022 were Dutch-speaking men residing in Belgium. Various age groups are represented, but the largest of these was the 50-59 age group.