In an appearance on ETV's "Terevisioon" this week, Elari Haugas, Serious Crimes Unit chief at the Police and Border Guard Board's (PPA) North Prefecture, noted that scam-related crime is on the rise — and that once a victim has transferred any money, it gets moved within seconds to other accounts and cryptocurrency and dispersed, making it nearly impossible to recover.

According to Haugas, common lately are scam phone calls, now even in Estonian, made about healthcare copays, involving promises of lower copays if they enter their information and confirm a few details.

"But in reality, the [victim] ends up losing tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of euros," he said. "Someone recently lost €1.7 million to this scheme."

Other scams still making the rounds involve calls or text messages allegedly from package delivery companies, informing the target that they've received a package and need to enter and confirm their info, or calls claiming that the victim's loved one was in a car crash, is panicking and crying, and urgently needs money to pay for a lawyer or to bribe the police to avoid criminal charges.

"They've already done their homework so they even know people's names," Haugas noted. "Info about us is, after all, quite public on social media."

The PPA works daily to identify the couriers who are showing up at people's doors.

"At the end of April, we arrested five young people in Tallinn, aged 17-22, who were money couriers going to people's homes to pick up cash," the unit chief said. "Nearly 40 criminal episodes have already been identified, with around half a million euros in damages, and we expect there are likely about as many more."

He added that this means total losses will increase as well.

"All five of these individuals were taken into custody," the officer confirmed. "And the scammers weren't above showing up to pick up the money with young kids in tow."

According to Haugas, these couriers have coordinators behind them.

"All of us are potential victims, and we're being targeted daily," he acknowledged. "This is international organized crime. The scheme is massive and spans multiple countries. This, of course, makes the investigation more difficult. When we manage to catch a courier or coordinator, we're able to reduce the number of people falling victim to fraud."

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