Fraudsters have tricked Latvian residents out of more than €16 million this year

Losses from fraud among Latvian residents exceeded €16 million in the first nine months of this year, according to State Police statistics on reported crimes. Police stress that the real number of victims and the true scale of losses are probably considerably higher, because not all victims report these crimes. This year more than 1,375 people are known to have been defrauded. For comparison, the sum stolen in 2024 was slightly above €16 million, and in 2025 it was €23.7 million.

The programme "Nekā personīga" spent several months examining how these schemes work, in cooperation with State Police investigators.

Sergejs's story

One victim is Sergejs, a retired man from Riga who works as a driver. He received a call from someone posing as an employee of the State Social Insurance Agency (VSAA), who said a courier would deliver a letter. After he confirmed a code with Smart ID, a message arrived from supposed cybersecurity specialists of SEB bank, claiming that loans were being taken out in his name. Communication took place on WhatsApp, and the fraudsters got him to enable screen sharing and approve Smart ID requests.

More than €11,000 in loan money reached Sergejs's account, and on the fraudsters' instructions he sent his bank card through an Omniva parcel locker. Within hours, nearly €4,500 was withdrawn from ATMs. The real bank blocked the account and card, while his wife and son called the police, who intercepted him at the bank.

The police experiment

Investigators agreed with the bank that Sergejs would be given an empty envelope, and they tracked its path. As instructed by the scammers, he placed it in a parcel locker, where two young men came to collect it and were detained. They said they had arrived in Latvia a few days earlier and found the job in a Telegram channel. Who was behind the scheme was not established.

International groups

Solvita Sļadze, a senior official at the State Police Cybercrime Combating Department, says the groups invest money in tools and new technologies. The most common scheme remains phone fraud run from call centres, which can employ more than 100 people. In spring, police and Ukrainian colleagues shut down a call centre in Kharkiv. Laundering the money has become more expensive, and it relies on money mules, shell companies and crypto assets.