Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) today published the dashboard on investment fraud for the first half of 2024.
Fraudulent trading platforms and cryptocurrency scams still represent about half of the reports about unlawful activities received by the FSMA. However, recovery room fraud is on the rise.
The FSMA has observed that fraudsters almost systematically re-contact victims of earlier frauds in order to offer them so-called “assistance” in recovering losses incurred. Reports concerning these fraudulent proposals (“recovery room” fraud) have increased by 59% compared to the same period in 2023.
The other types of fraud for which the FSMA was contacted remained stable in the first half of 2024.
During the first half of 2024, the FSMA published 9 new warnings against a total of 187 fraudulent entities and 239 websites.
The FSMA has noticed a significant increase in the number of consumer reports in the first half of 2024.
In the first six months of 2024, the FSMA received 1,332 consumer reports about unlawful activities. In 2023, the 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 because of investment fraud or false offers of credit. The remaining reports were questions from consumers who asked the FSMA for information about unlawful activities or suspicious market participants, but who had not yet paid any funds.
One of the tasks entrusted to the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) is to combat unlawful activities in the area of financial investments. It publishes a dashboard that provides statistics and an overview of the main trends regarding investment fraud.
