Azimet Köylüoğlu, a former State ministerBecame the latest victim of Turkey’s notorious phone scammers, according to a report by Sabah newspaper on Wednesday.
The scam has started last month like other, with fraudsters phoning their victim to tell them that son bank the accounts were “compromised” after “scammers hacked into them”. A scammer introduced himself to Köylüoğlu, a civil engineer who served as a state minister in load of Human Rights between 1994 and 1995, as “Attorney General for Antalya. Köyluoglu, who lives alone in western province of Izmir, believed the scammer’s claim as they detailed information about son bank accounts.
Another scammer contacted Köylüoğlu posing as a policeman. He searched more information about mobile banking passwords of the victim, telling him that he should withdraw money and put it back over to the “police” so that their serial numbers can be “verified”.
Köylüoğlu, considering that son money would be returned later, allowed them to withdraw. Crooks posing as police phoned Köylüoğlu once an hour for 20 days to gain the trust of their victim. It was also told to cut off contact with anyone throughout the “investigation”, and Köylüoğlu did not leave home Where call anyone for 20 days.
It was the greed of the crooks that ultimately foiled the scam. When scammers told him he should to sell son house in The Sarıyer district of Istanbul which was apparently the target of “crooks” who did not exist, Köylüoğlu traveled to Istanbul to make the sale. the house, however, was recorded in the name of the victims son. Köylüoğlu could not sell the house on his and when he contacted son sonhe helped him realize that son father was the victim of a massive scam. the former minister filed a criminal complaint while the “real“The police have opened an investigation for capture the suspects. It is unclear how much Köylüoğlu was defrauded.
In recent years, phone scams have multiplied in Turkey and mainly target the elderly people to live alone. They exploit people’s trust in security services and fear of tangle in investigation. Most often they made their victims believe their name came up in investigations related to terrorist groups, namely the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ) and the PKK. By combined persuasion with prior knowledge of personnel information on their victims whom they have carefully studied, they made that they send money “to check whether their money have been used in Activities of terrorist groups”.
the latest the most publicized victims were two teachers living in Istanbul, Ahmet Demirel, who handed over out $712,000 (10 millions from TL) to scammers and sociology expert Nilüfer Narlı, who gave her $35,000 (500,000 TL) and jewelry.
