A man in his 20s has been arrested in connection with a fraud investigation into cyber offences and ‘smishing’ scam.
He was detained yesterday morning in Ballymun following a search operation by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau and officers from the DMR South Central Detective Unit.
The man is currently detained under the provisions of Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2007 at Ballymun Garda station and can be detained for up to seven days.
The arrest was made as part of Operation KRYPTOS, which is investigating cyber offending online and the sending of bogus ‘smishing’ text messages to victims throughout the country.
Gardaí say investigations are ongoing.
‘Smishing’ is a type of scam that sees a fraudster use a text message to trick targeted recipients into clicking a link.
The advice from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau on Smishing is;
- Always be wary of text messages even if they are contained within the thread of previous genuine text from a financial institution.
- Never click on links – as by doing so you may be accessing cloned websites.
- If you’re expecting a delivery and receive such a text, be very careful.
- Banking institutions will never send a text containing a link.
- An Garda Síochána advises people not to respond to such texts, to take screenshots of the texts received and delete them and to report it to the bank or relevant company and local Garda station.
- Do not share personal details online
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