The Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has today published its investment fraud dashboard for the first half of 2024.
Fraudulent trading platforms and cryptocurrency scams continue to account for around half of the reports of illegal activity received by FSMA. However, recovery room fraud is on the rise.
The FSMA observed that fraudsters almost routinely re-contact victims of previous frauds in order to offer them so-called “help” to recover their losses. Reports of these fraudulent offers (“recovery room” scam) have increased by 59% compared to the same period in 2023.
The other types of fraud reported by FSMA remained stable in the first half of 2024.
In the first half of 2024, FSMA published 9 new warnings for a total of 187 fraudulent entities and 239 websites.
FSMA has seen a significant increase in the number of consumer reports in the first half of 2024.
In the first six months of 2024, FSMA received 1,332 consumer reports of illegal activity. In 2023, FSMA received a total of 925 reports in the first half of the year. This represents an increase of 44%.
More than half (52.3%) of these reports were complaints from consumers who had lost money due to investment fraud or fraudulent credit offers. The remaining reports were questions from consumers who asked FSMA for information about illegal activities or suspicious market participants, but had not yet paid money.
One of the tasks assigned to the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) is to combat illegal activities in the financial investment sector. Publishes a dashboard that provides statistics and an overview of key trends regarding investment fraud.