Sri Lanka CERT has warned the public about a fraud scheme in which scammers impersonate officials of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and the police Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) to steal victims’ bank deposits.
The agency said it has received complaints about people contacting victims by mobile phone and through social media, claiming to hold information about their savings and fixed deposits.
How the scheme works
The callers tell victims that complaints have been lodged alleging their deposits were obtained by fraudulent means, and threaten them with an FCID investigation.
They then send forged letters carrying fake Central Bank letterheads, the signatures of purported officials and rubber stamps, to make the claims appear legitimate.
Victims are instructed to transfer money from their accounts to a specified private bank account, which the scammers falsely claim belongs to an FCID officer. In some cases victims are told to transfer half of their existing deposits and to provide the deposit slip as proof.
The fraudsters also instruct victims to obtain a letter requesting the return of the transferred money to their original account once the supposed investigation is complete — a step that lends the scheme the appearance of a legitimate process.
Uniforms and forged identification
Sri Lanka CERT said the fraudsters operate in a highly sophisticated manner and are reported to possess police uniforms, bank identification cards and rubber stamps to strengthen the appearance of legitimacy.
The public has been urged to remain vigilant and not to provide financial information or transfer money in response to such requests.
CERT warned that retired and elderly people are particularly vulnerable to this type of fraud, and asked family members and the wider public to make them aware of it.
Neither the Central Bank nor the FCID contacts depositors to demand transfers of their savings.
A running pattern
The advisory follows a series of CERT warnings this month, including alerts over social media extortion scams, an Instagram sextortion racket and a zero-click WhatsApp vulnerability affecting iPhones. Impersonation of named officials has also been used in earlier scams reported this month.
