Police warn of “new fraud scheme” in Trinidad and Tobago

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The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) is warning of a “new fraud scheme” involving the use of fraudulent cheques drawn on the accounts of various financial institutions and government departments.

The police said that they have arrested eight people and have laid 42 fraud related charges against them for activities from January 1 to February 8 this year.

The police said that the charges range from uttering forged valuable securities to obtaining money by false pretences and money laundering.

“They arose from instances where fraudsters obtained copies of cheques drawn from universities, insurance companies and government department accounts and replaced them to create a new fraudulent cheque which reflects a new payee, sum, date and scanned copy of genuine signatures,” the police said in a statement.

It said under the “new fraud scheme”, the fraudsters “then incite genuine customers to deposit the cheques into their accounts for a small financial reward.

“The funds are then withdrawn from the accounts via the ATM or other counter transactions before the cheques are discovered to be fraudulent”.

The police are urging businesses to “conduct regular audits on cheque books whether in use or not to minimise, if not eliminate this…scheme”.

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