Scams in Fiji succeed mainly because criminals manipulate people’s emotions and behaviour, not because technology or laws are weak.
Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu made the observation during the Anti-Scam Awareness Week, saying scammers prey on human psychology by exploiting hope, urgency and vulnerability to deceive victims.
Mr Tudravu said despite improvements in policing and institutional responses, scam syndicates continued to adapt and ordinary citizens were still falling victim.
“The reason these criminals succeed is not because our laws are weak, or because our banks are failing,” he said.
“It is because scammers do not exploit our systems; they exploit our human psychology. They weaponise hope, urgency, and vulnerability.”
Mr Tudravu pointed to a scam currently circulating on social media in which fraudsters create professional-looking pages using the branding of recognised commercial banks to advertise quick, low-interest loans.
He said victims were directed to fraudulent websites where they entered their personal information before receiving a One-Time Password (OTP) on their phones.
The scammers then posed as bank representatives and asked victims to provide the OTP to complete the loan application.
Mr Tudravu said once the code was shared, victims’ bank accounts could be emptied within seconds.
“The police can deploy the most sophisticated software, and banks can build the highest firewalls, but if a citizen hands over the digital keys to their kingdom, the OTP, the criminal walks right through the front door.”
He said combating scams required more than institutional efforts and called for a national approach involving citizens, banks and international partners.
Mr Tudravu urged financial institutions to continue strengthening technological safeguards capable of detecting suspicious transactions and freezing fraudulent funds before they left the financial system.
“I’m calling for stronger international cooperation as cybercrime often crossed national borders and rely on intelligence sharing, cross-border enforcement and legal cooperation to disrupt organised scam syndicates.”
