KAMPALA – Police have cautioned the general public not to fall victim to a group of fraudsters issuing fake Swedish visas.
CID spokesman Charles Twine on Monday said fraudstars operate in such a way that they obtain money from the victims and in turn promise to process and issue them with Swedish Visas and work permits.
“Police has so far received a number of complaints from various victims, and we have commenced investigations into the matter under CID headquarters GEF 1180/2020. The culprits have been identified, profiled and efforts are underway to ensure they are arrested and brought to book,” Mr Twine said.
“We appeal to the public to be on a look out and report any person suspected to be involved in such fraudulent tractions to CID headquarters. We also appeal to members of the Public to seek consular services from the Embassies or official designated places,” he added.
Government, individuals and companies have been defrauded of more than Shs1 trillion in the last three years, the 2019 annual police crime report indicates. From 2017 to 2019, police only recovered Shs15.7 billion.
In 2019, Shs11.4b was lost to fraudsters through cybercrime, but only Shs51.8m was recovered. An additional Shs7.5b was lost in economic crimes.
That means Shs290b was lost to fraudsters through embezzlement, financial loss, abuse of office, counterfeiting, forgeries and uttering of documents, issuing false cheques, banks and other corporate frauds, obtaining by false pretences, cyber (computer) crimes and land frauds.
