Five Bahamians have been charged with stealing, acquisition of funds and money laundering in connection with a phishing scam.

Director of the Royal Bahamas Police Force Financial Crimes Investigations Branch, Superintendent Anthony McCartney explained the scheme.  He said, “when hackers send out information whether it be by SMS text message or by email notification in an attempt to get information from persons. And in most instances these SMS messages and also email notifications appear to be from the legitimate financial institutions and as indicated it’s all in an attempt to get your sensitive personal information to somehow get a hold of your banking information.”

More than $150,000 has been stolen from Bahamians using this method.  McCartney said, “they’ve targeted the young and the old.  And so nobody is exempted from these phishing attacks and these scammers.  As long as you have monies that they can benefit from you are liable to be a victim.”

More Bahamians are expected to be charged.