Government warns about spate of malicious phone calls

Many residents of the Principality of Monaco are currently receiving malicious telephone calls originating from foreign operator numbers, often appearing as ’number withheld’, making any attempt at tracing difficult.

This is a malicious telephone call campaign with the aim of defrauding potential victims who respond favourably to the callers’ requests.

During the last 48 hours, some 1,500 malicious phone calls have been made to more than of 600 Monegasque telephone lines, the Government said on Monday morning. The scammers mainly call elderly people, presenting themselves as police officers or lawyers to try to make them believe that a member of their family has been involved in a serious traffic accident.

They ask them to raise a large sum of money in order to help them.

The people receiving these calls are invited to: – NOT FOLLOW THE CALL – DO NOT RESPOND FAVOURABLY TO REQUESTS FROM THE CALLER – BLOCK PHONE NUMBER – DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT PUBLIC SAFETY (93.15.30.15)