Riyadh police spokesman Col. Nasser Al-Qahtani said the police received complaints from more than 64 individuals, including 43 from the capital city and its suburbs, that they were robbed of various amounts of money from their bank accounts.
The spokesman said victims told the police that unknown people contacted them, claiming they were bank officials and requesting data about their bank accounts to update them. “Moments after I provided them with the data, I discovered that money had been withdrawn from my account,” said a female victim.
The spokesman said the thieves would ask all sorts of questions until they had obtained enough data on the account before moving in to withdraw cash from it. “The victims included old and young men and women, students and a number of foreigners,” he said.
Al-Qahtani said the thieves would contact the victims by telephone and convince them to reveal their account numbers for updating.
The spokesman said large amounts of the stolen money were found in the thieves’ bank accounts. They would be taken to court for trial.
He warned people not to give any data about their bank accounts via telephone and to contact their banks immediately to ascertain if these calls were actually coming from them.
