New police command center announced to combat electronic fraud
The decision to create a new police command center to coordinate efforts to combat electronic fraud was announced on Wednesday following a meeting between Civil Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos, the Bank of Greece (BoG) Governor Yannis Stournaros, the president of the Hellenic Bank Association (HBA), and law enforcement officials. Both the BoG and the HBA will participate in the new command center.
The meeting was called to counter the increase of “phishing” scams, where people are duped to give out personal information and account details over email or SMS by messages purporting to originate from a trusted user, in most cases their bank.
“Unfortunately, instances where citizens lose their savings, with fake messages, fraudulent messages from their banks have become widespread,” said Theodorikakos after the meeting concluded. He added that his ministry took the initiative to organize this meeting to “unite our forces, coordinate our activity, and protect our citizens savings.”
According to Theodorikakos, the first move by the committee will be to coordinate a widespread information campaign to increase awareness of the scam and educate citizens on methods to protect themselves.
