A 34-year-old man is due to be produced at the Labasa Magistrates Court today after being charged with two counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception, police said, in what authorities describe as another example of scams conducted through messaging apps. The accused is alleged to have persuaded two separate victims to transfer almost $1,000 in total after sending fraudulent messages via Viber purporting to be their workplace managers.
According to the charges, the incidents took place in August and September 2023. In each case, the victims reportedly received Viber messages from a sender claiming to be a supervisor at their place of work and asking that money be transferred through a mobile money service. The victims later discovered the messages were not genuine and reported the transactions to police, who laid the deception charges against the 34-year-old.
The matter will be heard at the Labasa Magistrates Court, where the accused is expected to appear. Court papers name the offences as obtaining financial advantage by deception — the same statutory charge used in a series of recent mobile money fraud prosecutions across Fiji. No further details about the alleged amounts taken from each individual, bail conditions or whether any funds have been recovered were released by police ahead of the court appearance.
This case is the latest in a string of matters involving mobile-money and messaging-app deception to come before Fijian courts in the past year. Earlier reports involved a variety of tactics, including requests for one-time passwords and impersonation of officials, with suspects in separate cases charged after victims lost sums ranging from a little over $100 to several hundred dollars. Authorities have increasingly identified mobile money platforms and social messaging apps as channels exploited by fraudsters who seek to mislead people into authorising transfers.
Investigations into such scams have featured in both Suva and Labasa jurisdictions, and courts have been processing multiple related files in recent months. While investigators have previously attributed some cases to schemes that relied on tricking victims into sharing one-time passwords, the present charges in Labasa centre on impersonation via Viber messages and requests for transfers through a mobile money service.
Today’s court appearance will provide the first public update in the matter since charges were filed. As with other recent deception prosecutions, the case may take several sittings as police and prosecutors gather evidence and alleged victims give statements.
Leave a comment