A 19-year-old young man from Ghent scammed dozens of people between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 by sending them a message resembling an SMS from the popular Itsme application according to information from Nieuwsblad. This allows Belgian citizens to connect to official platforms such as those of the government, banks or insurers as well as to share identity data or confirm payments on the internet.
The victims of the scam received an SMS whose appearance could suggest that it came from the application. The message directed them to a web page where the scammers had to enter their personal data. Thanks to the banking information collected, the 19-year-old scammer could carry out money transactions.
He would thus have collected at least 26,000 until the Ghent police got wind of his scam. In early February, he was arrested by investigators who confiscated mobile phones, SIM cards, valuable vouchers, cash and a laptop computer in the hotel room he occupied. Released under conditions a few days later, he is still awaiting trial.
This type of scam, also called phishing, is well known to police services, which call on citizens to be vigilant when they receive text messages or emails with a link to a web page.